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Josh_Kablack
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### Josh's Enkopja Campaign Docs for player reference

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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Dec 02, 2010 5:54 am

Contents, Intro and Chargen
Josh Says: this is the cleaned up, collected and player-readable version of the stuff discussed in the other thread and in a number of recent rules arguments. I ask that regular Denizens please don't argue about any of it in this thread, do so in the other thread or start your own.
I further ask that any of my players do not read the other thread and instead post any questions or concerns they want to direct to everyone right here in this thread.
Contents:

- Post I: Contents, intro and chargen
  Post II: Available classes and links
  Post III: Racial Descriptions and Mechanics
  Post IV: Feats I swiped from the Tomes (with just a handful of new ones and some minor tweaks)
  Post V: Backgrounds I swiped from the Tomes
  Post VI: Josh tweaks Tome Armor, and produces a readable chart for same.
  Post VII: Additional Exotic Weapons available
  Post VIII: Magic Item Rules and other incomplete stuff.

The quick intro: This is a game in a psudeo-African fantasy adventure setting, and for influences it probably owes more to Edgar Rice Burrows, HR Haggard and parts of Jules Verne than to Tolkien and Lieber. It's a setting where the humans are the technologically advanced newcomers, yet the humans know the least about the way in which the lands work so their advance is upsetting traditions and causing great change.
This is also a game where the non-human races were inspired by my hobby of armchair zoology and asking "if an animal that reproduced like that developed intelligence, how might their culture work?" Hopefully my attempts to answer that provides non-human races that will seem far less human than just having pointy ears or scots accents.
It is a setting where there is much conflict and shocking savagery, but it is not a game where there is a single evil empire, dark overlord or race bent on conquest. I intend to place the emphasis on exploration and discovery as much as on righting wrongs and deeds of daring-do.
Now onwards to the rules as you might want to know them.
Okay, first off, there's the online System Reference Document, you can find a fully hyperlinked version at http://www.d20srd.org/ That's the jumping off-point but then I'm making a bunch of changes, many swiped from Frank and K's Tome Series ( mainly RoW and the Dungeonomicon, you can find a link index at http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50239. As awesome as these are, very nearly everything I'm using from them is copied into the campaign documents collected here so you shouldn't need to read them. ) as well as other people's online works. But rather than hitting you with everyting at once I'll outline what you need to know for chargen here in a page or two, and then you can view the relevant links and files as you need them
Stats: Instead of rolling or point buy, you pick a set from the five listed. After you pick a set you may then swap the positions of any two ability scores and you may overwrite any ability score with the listed Wildcard value. You may swap and then overwrite or overwrite, then swap, whichever.
Set A: Str 14 Dex 15 Con 14 Int 13 Wis 14 Cha 09 WILDCARD 15
Set B: Str 08 Dex 12 Con 12 Int 15 Wis 15 Cha 15 WILDCARD 16
Set C: Str 13 Dex 12 Con 13 Int 14 Wis 13 Cha 14 WILDCARD 16
Set D: Str 14 Dex 17 Con 13 Int 08 Wis 10 Cha 14 WILDCARD 17
Set E: Str 13 Dex 11 Con 13 Int 12 Wis 13 Cha 14 WILDCARD 18
Classes: there are major changes to available classes and many custom classes are available. You're gonna have to see the class list docco and links for them all. I'm also totally ditching multiclassing penalties and favored classes, you may take levels in as many different classes as you want with no penalties.
Level: This game starts at level 3. Advancement is probably one level per 2 or 3 game sessions and it is unlikely that I will want run with characters above 10th level.
Hit Dice: You're not rolling. Instead we're using fixed values for each class at all levels. Everybody gets +3 bonus HP at first level. If a class has d4 s you get 3 HP, if a class has d6s you get 4 HP, if a class has d8s you get 5 HP, if a class has d10s you get 6 HP and if a class has d12s you get 7 HP for the relevant levels in that class.
Races: There are very major changes to the playable races and the mechanics for those races. This is in some ways the driving force for this game, so you probably want to read the races docco.
Feats: There are major changes to available feats. Everything gets powered up and scales. See feat docco for details. You may also chose feats out of the SRD (although you probably don't want to) and I can probably be talked into allowing feats from elsewhere in the Tome Series.
Character Backgrounds: You may pick one background from the background document. These are backstories which come with minor bonuses. You can totally skip this if you want.
Gear
-Starting Equipment For now, we go with core and you enter the game at 3rd level with 2700 GP worth of stuff that you carry around.
Note that only the humans make iron and steel items and firearms.
HAPPY CHRIS: and
YOU TOO, BRIAN
6th level, 13,500 worth of stuff subject to the 8 constant item limit and the other half-assed draft rules below. That means you get the first crack at breaking them, have fun.
-Armor and Shields: there are major changes in what is available and how it functions, you're gonna want to see the armor list docco
-Weapons: Just some minor changes. The Greatclub becomes simple, the whip can hurt people despite armor or natural armor. You may also want to take a look at the list of additional exotic weapons available for this game.
Also noteworthy is that Humans are the only ones who have iron and steel weapons. This is a flavor thing only I'm not sticking other races with the suggested penalties for Bronze weapons, but bear it in mind for character backstory. So it's cool if your Gnoll Samurai uses a katana made from honed Manticore spikes fused by the acid of a digestor, and it's cool if your Gnoll Samurai uses a steel katana he acquired from a human before the campaign starts. But the Gnolls do not forge their own iron, so he totally cannot be using a steel katana that was used by his clan for generations.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Fri Jun 17, 2011 1:23 am, edited 8 times in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Dec 02, 2010 5:56 am

II. Available Classes and links
A. Cutesy Summaries of Available Classes:
Assassin: Sneak around and make death attacks
Barbarian: Be nigh-invulnerable, enter mighty rages, hit things with your ax
Fire mage: Set enemies and your weapons on fire
Green mage: Use the power of wind, and lightning, don't forget lightning
Jester: Prank your enemies and laugh off their counterattacks
Knight: Heavy armor, chivalry, punish enemies for ignoring you
Monk: Ever seen a kung-fu flick? One that didn't have David Carradine in it? Yeah, just like that.
Ranger: You want to lead a life of sex and danger
Rogue: Sneak around, disable traps, stab people in the back
Samurai: Pledge your loyalty and let your ancestors guide your blade
Sand Mage: Unleash the fury of the desert upon your foes
Snowscaper: Freeze your foes solid and always look cool
Spirit Shaman: Make friends with the spirits and use their magic
Thief-acrobat: Jump around, jump around, get up and make death-from-above sneak attacks
Totemist: Meld the powers of fantastic beasts into your very soul
War mage: Use spells to blow things up and solve strategic logistical problems
White mage: Heal your friends, and confound your enemies by healing your friends some more.
Witch: Curse people, float like a duck, brew potions, bippity-bopity-boo!
B. Actual Links to classes
Swording-Type Classes: Barbarian (Races of War), Knight (Races of War ) Monk (Dungeonomicon), Ranger (SRD), Samurai (Races of War ),
Races of War: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=33294
SRD ranger: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm
(Ranger gets these powerups: upgrade HD to d10, apply favored enemy to all types of damage, do not have to select favored enemy subtypes for outsider, have only two favored enemy subtypes for humanoid (humans or not-humans) animal companion and caster level are now based of class level-3 and replace combat style and uprgrades with bonus feats chosen from {Blind Fighting, Combat School, Command, Danger Sense, Hunter, Insightful Strike, Point-Blank Shot, Sniper,Two Weapon Fighting and Zen Archery} and Endurance is replaced by Great Fortitude at level 3)
Sneaking-Type Classes: Assassin (Dungeonomicon ) Jester (Dungeonomicon ), Rogue (SRD) , Thief-Acrobat (Dungeonomicon now using revised version)
Dungeonomicon: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=28547
SRD rogue: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm
revised Thief Acrobat: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52419
Blasting-Type Classes: Warmage, Fire Mage, Snowscaper, Green Mage, Sand Mage
Warmage: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50032
Fire Mage: REVISED version: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52437
Snowscaper: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50012
Green Mage: REVISED version: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52444
Sand Mage: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51851
Duct-Taping-Type Classes: White Mage, Spirit Shaman
White Mage: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50559
Spirit Shaman: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50046&start=13
Mixed Magic-Type Classes: Totemist , The Witch
Totemist: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50483
Witch: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50003
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:02 pm, edited 13 times in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:01 am

III. Playable Races
Racial Descriptions
Humans:
The three great human kingdoms (Eaglia, Ravensburg and Lyonesse) were shaped into an Empire a few decades ago. The wars and intrigues led to an initially uneasy peace between the three lands imposed by force and threat. But the prosperity brought about by The Lame Tyrant's legal reforms and the recent discovery of airships have led to a gradual easing of the peace during the long reign of Empress Claudia and Consort Theodore. Today the tensions between the nations of the Empire are not mentioned in the homelands, but are instead played out as the nations and houses within the nations jockey to expand the Empire's territory further into the lands accross the sea and beyond the Great Desert.
The recent discovery of Claudia-stone deposits in the hills of Enkopja has caused many intrepid souls to brave this strange and savage land to find fortune.
Human Adventurers: Humans take to adventuring for a wide variety of reasons. Many are merely hunting treasures, others seek to discover new knowledge of this land and its odd peoples, many seek to expand the influence of their nation or house within the Empire, some seek to claim a kingdom for themselves amongst the new land, while others seek merely to escape their pasts.
Human Sayings: The Empress's Petticoat! A reaction to something shocking, that was perhaps better unseen or unsaid
A Dream of the Lame Tyrant: Said of things that are socially unacceptable, but which could be very pragmatic.
Cavor's Choice: A decision for which there is no good answer. References Dr. Cavor's jumping from the gondola of an early airship to his death. This lightened the load enough to save the ship and his assistant.
Changelings:
The common view is that "Changelings use their shapeshifting abilities to hide among normal humans. They replace normal, healthy babies with their spawn. They got away with this for many years, but the Grand Inquisition of Lyonesse has done much to ferret out their dark conspricacies and insidious plots for domination and remove their taint from our great Empire."
Most changelings are raised by normal humans, and remain unaware of their own nature for most of their childhood. They tend to discover their formshifting abilities purely by accident, and those who do so in public face torture by the Inquisition or public execution. There really are small secret cabals of changelings, but such are mainly concerned with their own safety and providing escapes and covers for others of their kind. The largest such cabal is a group known as The False Faces (aka Friendly Faces among changelings) who have openly established an outpost on the Enkojpain peak known as "The General" and dare the wrath of the Inquisition by leaving telltale calling cards behind when they smuggle changelings out of imperial lands and even raiding prisons to free other changelings.
Changeling Adventurers: Changelings are seeking freedom from the persecution of the human lands and acceptance among the nonhuman cultures. Many seek refuge at the sanctuary of the False Faces. While members of the False Faces seek allies amongst the other races in preparation for the day when the Inquisition will move against their sanctum
Changeling sayings: "Tell no one, for you never know who is listening"
"Do not fear, do not hide, for true change you must stand up, be strong and achieve your true potential" - Motto of the False Faces
related human sayings" "Unsolid character comes of unsolid flesh"
"Shifty buggers!"
Dryads
This race seems very alien to humans for a number of reasons. Their life cycle is unlike that of mammals and their worldview gives them a co-operativeness and lack of concern for the individual that humans find startling.
They eat the leaves and the sap of Acacia trees. As a race they are only female and reproduce partogenetically. They do not have distinct childhood and adulthood, in fact a dryad begins to reproduce her own first daughter before she herself is even born of her mother. A pregnant mother dryad shares not merely blood and fluid with her fetal daughter but also thought and memory. Thus a dryad is born with the memories of her mother, including her mother's memories of her grandmother's memories, which in turn include her grandmother's memories of her great-grandmother's memories, all the way back to the hazy uncertain myth-dream memories of The First Mother finding the First Tree and making The Covenant with the Queen of the Hive-Dwellers.
This sharing of thought between mother and daughter means that from her very first awareness up until immediately following the birth of her eldest daughter no dryad is ever completely alone in her head. This first seperation from any other consciousness is known as "the time of loneliness" and is the most difficult time of a young Dryad's life. Traditionally the keepers of the kobold hive that guards the dryad grove will hold a celebration to mark the occasion and to consol a young dryad in her first time of lonliness, emphasizing that despite the lack of shared memories between the races, the kobolds and dryads have a sacred Covenant, and despite the lack of shared memories between the creatures, this dryad and this kobold still honor that Covenant..
Dryad Adventurers: Without the need for mating and with the guardianship of a kobold hive to keep large predators away Dryads can reproduce very rapidly, and it is not uncommon for a dryad population to double each year. But due to their racial memory, each dryad is aware that whenever there get to be more dryads than Acacia trees in a grove, their feeding starts to kill the trees in that grove, resulting in fewer trees to feed the same number of dryads, resulting in more trees dying and leading to a desperate spiral of overgrazing and starvation that leads to mass death for both trees and dryads. But being aware of this danger, the dryads prevent it from ever coming to pass. Whenever there are more dryads than the local Acacia trees can support in an area, the youngest daughters go forth to find new trees. These dryads do not know if they will succeed in finding new trees, but they also don't really care - they can actually remember that everyone in their family dies of starvation if they stay in the grove of their elders, so they are eager to take the chance of establishing new groves. Furthermore, these dryad wanderers make a point to always plant more Acacia seeds as they travel, secure in the knowledge that one day in the future, their great-great-grand-nieces will find the trees that grow from these seeds.
Dryad Naming Conventions The dryads have only a few score names amongst them, and dryads have long been transliterating these names into the trade tongues, so re-transliterating them into names familiar to human ears was only natural. In addition to her own name, each dryad has a lineage of all of her mother's mother's. When it would cause confusion to use just her own name, a dryad prepends her name with the names of her most immediate forebears. Furthermore, each dryad has a birth location used to identify them. Thus a dryad who might be known simple as "Su" to her human adventuring compatriots might introduce herself as Ahna-Beph-Su from the Small Mossy Tree of the Eastern Dragonskull Hive Southern Grove when encountering a different grove of dryads.
Dryad Sayings: "First mother!" - an exclaimation of surpise or a plea for supernatural help
"If you take half of what you want, you will grow twice what you need" - a proverb
"Lonely Minded" - a term for non-dryad, non-kobold races used to indicate that they cannot see the bigger picture. It is often misinterpreted as an insult, but it is more a term of sympathy.
related Human sayings "As close as Dryads and Kobolds" - used to describe a well functioning team, or highly co-operative orgnaizations.
"If you only take half of what you want, the Home Office will cut your budget"
Gnolls
Taller and lankier than humans, gnolls have heads like dogs and fur coats with various patterns of grey, tan and black. They live in clans of several hundred to a few thousand individuals who make great encampents on the grasslands. Clans are divided into packs, which are often (but not always) associations of family groups. Traditionally, the eldest gnoll has authority and responsibility for a family, but packs are always lead by a Matron and clans are always headed by a Matriarch. The positions of Matron and Matriarch are not at all formal and are held by agreement tempered with fear. While gnoll legends speak of bloody struggles for supremacy within each clan, such conflicts are rare in actuality. It is far more common for a challenger to call a muster - and if more clan members (or more of the most fearsome clan members) muster to the challenger's side the Matron (or Matriarch) steps aside, while if more muster to the Matron's side the challenger backs down and offers up her belly.
The rearing of young is both a familial and communal task, and as pups age they are reared by different members of their family, pack and clan at different stages. Newborn pups are raised by their mother and the other suckling mothers of the clan, pre-adolescent pups are raised in groups by elder brothers or maternal uncles or even sometimes by unrelated mentors appointed by their Matron. (Gnolls do not recognize nor acknowledge fathers). At adolescence, pups are returned to their mothers' tutelage until they can become recognized adults within the pack. The passing through different phases of childhood prepares the young gnoll to accept the multi-layered responsibilities of family, pack and clan.
Any gnoll that falls out of favor with family, with pack or with clan is exiled from all - yet this exile is not as harsh as it might seem, as it is common for gnolls exiled from one clan to find a new home in another. Each clan has elaborate Rites of Acceptance by which outsiders may become members. These rites mirror the progression of a pup to adulthood, but frequently include added tests for the prospective member to prove their worthiness to the new clan. Most Gnoll legends involve the heroine being exiled from a clan and having to pass especially challenging Rites of Acceptance into a new clan - frequently in such myths the seemingly impossible challenge of the Rites prepares the heroine for the even greater challenge she will confront as a Matron within the new clan.
Gnoll Adventurers: Roughly one in four Gnolls is exiled from the clan they were born into. Gnolls commonly adventure to seek out new clans or to complete the Rites of Belonging for a new clan. Occasionally Gnolls established within a clan will undertake adventures for the clan or to improved their own standing within the clan.
Gnoll Naming Conventions: All Gnoll names for people and places are taken from their ancient myths, which were first written down by Moreton Drax. Common names among the gnolls include: Nuth, Hilnaric, Athelvok, Pombo, Immuz, Shap, Thangobrind, Shard, Sladden, Slith, Mluna and more.
Gnoll Sayings: "Family above self, pack above family, clan above pack, but honor above all"
"There is no shame in being a exile - the shame is in being without a clan"
"A pup need not prove itself until it becomes a warrior "
"Your mother was last to eat when she bore you" - a grave insult
related Human sayings: "Family above self, country above self, empire above country, but above all check your ammo"
"Your mother!"
Goblinoids.
The goblinoids are a furry humanoid race with extreme gender dimorphism. The Bugbears are the bull males of the species. They have bright orange or yellow fur and are immediately combative to any other bugbear they encounter and are hostile to any goblin or hobgoblin who does not show them proper defference. Humans stereotype bugbears as angry loners.
Goblins are the smaller males of the species. They have greenish-yellow fur and are intrinsically quarrelsome, but they have learnt to be sneaky and to work in concert in order to protect themselves from and thwart the larger Bugbears. A goblin who aquires enough food, power and may become a Bugbear, although the precise triggers are unknown. Humans sterotype groups of goblins as "streetgangs of green midgets".
The Hobgoblins are the females of the species. Their fur tends to be varying shades of grey. They are highly co-operative and have a very efficient family organization where immediate family members work closely on tasks and extended family members can be called on for aid, and further relations can be traded favors. This is really the basis of goblinoid civilation, but humans don't really understand Hobgoblins enough to stereotype them.
What is of vital importance to the race is that Hobgoblins require snow in order to birth their litters. This means that every year, in advance of the rainy season, there is a racial migration to the slopes of The Great White Mountain. On the slope, the hobgoblins have an arcane system of caste, age, family and favors owed that determinnes who may build nests where, but the bugbears will quite literally fight each other to the death for the right to mate with the hobgoblins nesting in a given territory.
Goblinoid adventurers Most bugbears are motivated by a desire for personal power. Bugbear adventurers tend to seek to better themselves and to find anything that will give them an edge over other Bugbears. While they are immediately hostile to other Bugbears, many have found that they can acquire knowledge, power and useful items from other races.
Most goblins who become adventurers do so out of desperation borne from a lack of allies amongst their own kind, but some do so just to thwart others who are larger and stronger than themselves.
Hobgoblins occasionally take up adventuring for status of their family and sometimes as a form of favor-trading. Within the past few years some hobgoblins have become aware of the winter snows of the human lands and are now working to gain passage and the rights to such far off territory far from the crowded slopes.
Goblinoid Naming Conventions: goblins have a given name which can be modified by various suffixes and honorifics used to denote phenotype, degree of familiarity or formality, parentage, ancestry, altitude of birth. While that alone is often perplexing to humans, these various suffixes also have tonal variations that convey additional meanings about one's clan and character.
Goblinoid sayings:"One so puny shoud not try me!" - The most common Bugbear greeting
"An unpaid favor is a debt" - a hobgoblin maxim
related human sayings: "Belligerant as a bull bugbear!"
"Inscrutable as a covey of hobgoblins"
Kobolds
Kobolds are short hive-dwelling humanoids with pale skin and a keen sense of smell. Kobolds have small red eyes and most kobold workers are 2 to 2½ feet tall and weigh 35 to 45 pounds. Kobolds wear little clothing, but are fond of jewelery and ornamentation that identifies their caste and hive. They are burrowing mammals who live in hives they mark with great clay mounds. They defend their hives with elaborate traps and secret magics. Each kobold hive is under the absolute rule of a hivequeen who mates with one to three hive princes. The other kobolds in a hive are sterile and are assigned to castes where they work as tunnelers, soldiers, scouts and dryad keepers.
Kobolds live in a symboitic and co-dependant relationship with Dryads. Kobold burrowing helps to grow the acacia trees that the dryads depend on, and kobold hives defend dryads against predators as they feed on acacia sap. In turn the dryads produce honeydew which the kobolds feed their young and warn the kobolds of the approach of an large predators.
Kobold culture both fears and idolizes Dragons - who are always a threat to both kobold burrows and Dryad groves. They are the gravest danger and therefore a symbol of great power. A hive is accorded great reknown if it repels the attack of a dragon, and some hives have been known to seek dragon bones to mark their mounds.
Kobold Adventurers: All kobold hives send out scouts to bring back food, learning, and treasures. Most kobold adventurers are such scouts.
Kobold Sayings: Without a hive, there is no scout. Without scouts, there are no hives.
Roots for the Kobolds, leaves for the Dryads - equivalent to "one man's trash is another's treasure"
Anything can enter through an untrapped burrow - a saying meant to emphasize the need for caution and commonsense in the current situation
related Human Sayings: As loyal as a lowly kobold - meaning someone loyal enough to value a cause or organization above their own individual life
Kuo-Toa
The Kuo-Toa are a race perhaps best described as frogmen. 11 months out of the year they live in mud and thatch villages in the various climes of the interior where they farm various crops, raise various animals, work wood, work stone or cast bronze, and trade with others as each settlement is able. Within a settlement Kuo-Toa men and women dress differently and perform different tasks, but they may associate freely with each other, for the 'Toa have no context for jealously nor romance within their villages.
But with the coming of the great rains they abandon their settlements, their farms, their industry, their commerce and even their quarrels a every healthy adult of the entire race journeys to the coast in celebration of their holy month. This is a monthlong celebration of singing, dancing and spawning in the brackish tidal pools that are created amongst the coastal rocks.
During the Holy Month of the Swelling of the Sea, kuo-toa settlements are left nearly vacant and vulnerable to raids and razing by other species. The kuo-toa discourage this through traps, alliances with other races and the occasional act of horrific vengeance against those who disrespect the sanctity of the Month of Dance. Usually this works well enough to dissaude others from taking too great an advantage, but just last year Lord Allen of Lyonese saw fit to use the Holy Month to have his troops raze a 'Toa town that was sitting on a vein of Claudia he claimed. Word is now spreading through the Kuo-Toa that another great vengeance must be wrought - but it is unlcear if it is to be a vengence against merely Allen, all of Lyonese or all of Allen's kind.
After spawning, Kuo-Toa abandon their eggs to the tidal pools and return to their settlements, the eggs hatch into tadpoles who live as fish for the first part of their lives. Within a few years the tadpoles develop legs, lungs and arms and climb out of the sea and onto the shores. But when a young 'toa makes its first steps onto land it is unknowing, it speaks no language and cannot even tell right from wrong. It is the sacred duty of all Kuo-Toa to adopt and educate the unknowing so that they may become true Kuo-Toa - they believe that the Spirit of the Sea commanded them such. Every Kuo Toa was basically a wild animal that was caught and domesticated by random Kuo Toa that probably weren't related to them at all.
The 'Toa divide the world up into six categories. From highest to lowest these categories are : kuo-toa, those who-speak-like-kuo-toa, those beasts-who-speak-other langauges, those who-know-not, those who-cannot-know, and beasts. As part of their obligation to the Spirit of the Sea, they must offer hospitality and instruction to all categories equal to or above those who-know-not and they may only enslave or eat the flesh of those who cannot-know or of beasts.
Kuo-Toa Adventurers: Kuo-Toa adventurers are often curious to learn more about far-off places, but many also undertake adventures to earn or return a favor from members of other races. It is of vital import for each Kuo-Toa settlement to have allies amongst the other beasts-who-speak.
Kuo-Toa Naming Conventions All proper nouns to the Kuo-Toa are a combination of a single-syllable adjective with a single-syllable noun. However, when rendering such into other tongues, an additional word is borrowed from that tongue for clarity. So a 'Toa speaking another language might introduce himself as Greenthroat the Tanner from Hotfire Village upon the Softsnail River,
Kuo-Toa Sayings: "Instruction is just as sacred as the Dance"
"By the Spirit of the Sea! - an exclamation of surprise.
related Human sayings: "As distracted as a 'Toa on pilgrimmage."
Lamia:
The lamia are a bipedal race like humans, but otherwise much like the great cats. They have golden fur, lithe forms, short tails and eyes that widen and narrow to slits. They live in various settlements throughout the plains, veldts, savannahs, forests and jungle of Enkopja. These settlements range from a single pride who claims the game at a small water hole to the reknownedWicker City of Sisalbloom.
To a human observer, the ways of the lamia prides seem strange . The father is kept hidden in a large hut and performs indoor work such as weaving and carving while the mothers share the various outdoor tasks or building, hunting, farming, tanning and teaching the cubs - with the mothers' duties changing at each new moon. What is particularily jarring to many human newcomers is how the play of the cubs frequently turns deadly - it is said that less than half of all cubs reach adolescence, and that fewer than that survive to adulthood. At adolescence, each female undergoes a rite of passage of leading her first hunt - if the hunt is successful she receives her pride mark and is allowed to remain - but if the hunt fails, she is exiled and must wander until she can find or found a new pride. More shockingly, males undergo a rite of passage that involves gladitorial combat with other adolescent males from nearby prides and/or exile from the land of their birth. Such exile is not alway permenant, lamia females who bring especially worthy hunt trophies home may be reaccepted into the pride, and exiled males may return to demand gladitorial rematches in hopes of winning the rite of return. The extent of gladitorial matches amongst the males is such that the adult females vastly outnumber the males
The Wicker City of Sisalbloom in the Sky(to)Sky Hole is ruled by the Sun Pride, a famility consisting of the Moon King and his Twelve Queens of the Stars. Unique about this monarchy is that the membership in the royal pride is not decided by lineage, as amongst the humans, but is open to challengers - for both King and Queens. On the night of the each full moon a designated queen or king must defend their continued fitness against a gladitorial challenger in the great arena. The contests are supposedly to the death, but defending royals have been know to show mercy and accept surrender. Should the challenger win, they replace the King or Queen they slew and are coronated into the royal family.
Lamia Adventurers: Most lamia adventurers are young adults who have been exiled from the pride of their birth and who are seeking a new home or enough improvement to return to their home
Lamia Naming Conventions Most lamia names tend to be multisyllabic and have many sibilant sounds (s, z, v, f, sh). Each Lamia has only a single name, but recently humans have begun to use various descriptive adjectives (such loudmouth, brightmane, leaper, longtail, narrow-eyes) to differentiate in their dealings Lamia, and this use of strange words from the human tongue is just beginning to become a fad in the Wicker City.
Lamia sayings: Be fleet of foot, strong of heart and quick of wit and your hunts will end well.
There may be two fathers in the brush, but there is only one father in a den
Until the last bone is cracked - an admonition to see a task through to the end, it references the lamia funerary tradition of guarding a corpse from land animals so that carrion birds may return the flesh to the sky.
related Human sayings: honest like a lamia - said of an enemy who does not hide their hostility.
Lizardfolk:
Proportioned like crocodiles with shortened snouts and elongated limbs, lizardfolk are bit larger than humans. They live in small villages along waterways, usually making their dwelling huts of mud and thatch. They are natural swimmers and most live by fishing. They use tools of wood, rope and bone. What is most striking to the human observer is the utter lack of distinction between males and females - both are of similar stature, any member of the village may perform any job and wear any garment - each according to the individual. It is said that during mating the egg passes from the female to the male's pouch , so each gender swells with their young, and after the egg hatches, both parents will "mother" the young for several years. Their men and women cannot be told apart, and their language does not have any form of gender - instead of pronouns for "he" and "she", they have pronouns that include simple adjectives, translating roughly as "the big one", "the little one", "the dark one", "the light one", "the hot one" "the cold one", "the one with the egg", and "the other one"
The lizardfolk have a strong tradition of honoring the spirits of the world and of their ancestors, and speak of it in an oral tradition centered around their Promise Epics. These are tales of their ancestors and of interactions with spirits, and these tales always include a bargain made with a spirit at the price of an obligation to recount the tale. Sometimes it is a bargain as simple as "For so long as the children of our village recount this tale, the river spirit shall keep to its bargain and allow the tigerfish to return to us each new spring". and other times it is a much more complex bargain. Lizardfolk who wish to make friends or alliances will recount their most important Promise Epic as a form introduction and it is expected that the other party will respond in kind. The Epic told tells the other party much about the Lizardfolk who keeps it and also extends both the protection of and obligation to the spirit in the Epic so recounted to the other party.
Lizardfolk Adventurers: Lizardfolk may wander away from their home for a wide variety of reasons - ranging from inability to fit into their home village to material want to sacred obligation to the spirits. Lizardfolk villages are often destroyed by flooding or rendered unsuitable due to changing courses of the waterways and the members of a village so ruined will choose to disperse as often as they choose to rebuild. It is also noteworthy that in recent years, some of the lizardfolk have found that the many of the humans will pay quite well for pearls and salvage of lost ships that can be found by sea-diving.
Lizardfolk Sayings: A tale of promise must contain the promise of a tale.
related Human Sayings Quit with the lizardpoem already - meaning to cut the story short and get to the point
Pixies
The Enkopjain Pixie bears a slight resemblence to the old fairy stories and loooks more like a large mantis or foot-long wasp than like a tiny human. They are naturally coloured like jungle flowers and possessed of veined transparent wings and a prominent stinger.
They live as nomadic tribes or in small villages, and herding is central to their life and culture. Each male of the tribe must maintain a herd of kalulu, and status is determined by the size of a tribesman's kalulu herd. Recently some have branched into raise the cattle of the humans for trade and slaughter, but such herds do not confer the status of the kalulu.
Their legend is that all of the world's kalulu were gathered by the sky-godess and gifted to the pixies so that they would no longer need to hunt. But gift was nearly lost due to the chase-lust of their first princess, who bargained with the nightmare-demons for the greatest hunt ever. The nightmare-demons taught kalulu to run faster than the wind and to burrow into the dark places, and then they unleashed the great terror on the great court of the gods scattering the gods, the pixies, and all the herds of kalulu over the land. The demons had kept their bargain, for the hunt was so great that it continues to the present day. The pixies believe that their gods will not return to them until they have finished the hunt and recaptured every escaped kalulu in existance. This causes some strife, as they do not recognize any other races' ownership of to kalulu.
During their mating rite, the husband presents his kalulu herd to the wife, and a wife is expected to reject the proposal if the herd is insufficient. This is not merely a point of culture, but also of biology, as the female pixies must lay their eggs inside paralyzed kalulu so that their young may incubate by eating the animal from the inside out. The pixies do not distinguish between immediate and extended family groups and a whole tribe or village will share in rearing the young instars when they first emerge from the kalulu.
Pixie Adventurers: Despite their existance as herders, the race has a strong predatory streak and a tradition of an ongoing great hunt, so it is not at all uncommon for pixies to leave their tribe to hunt kalulu to increase their herd or lay their eggs in. In the course of such hunts, some pixies have learnt that gold can be exchanged for many rabbits and have therefore broadened the scope of their activities to become adventurers.
Pixie Naming Conventions:Pixy naming conventions are <name> <descriptor> <flower word> for females and <name> <descriptor> <rabbit word> for males. Examples: Mrende of the Thousand Petals, Ashanti Stolen Pollen, Bem of the Remote Cottontail, Amadi Long Ears.
Pixie Sayings: "There was a touch of the nightmares left in that one's host" - said of an especially fearsome individual
"You measure a husband by how many kalulu are in his herd. You measure a wife by how many kalulu she stings."
"Do not waste your venom on a rival with no herd."
related Human Sayings: "One rabbit is not worth taking a sting"
Slaad
The Slaadi are are race of bipedal, yet toadlike desert dwellers. To the human eye, and adult Slaad looks much like an adult Kuo-Toa, but the appearance is all the two races have in common. Slaad do not have nor need permenant homes and instead form loose and transient communities centered around their seasonal hunting of the fearsome Behemoths who head to drier climes in the rainy season in order to avoid their great bulk becoming mired in mudpits.
The Slaad refer to the seasonal groupings of their males as a hunt, and each hunt forms when the first hint of rain is on the winds. Each hunt will stalk the Behemoth herds and wait for an oppurtunity to ambush a weaker or slower behomoth by itself. Yet, even the weakest of Behomoths is a still a collosal beast with a nearly impenetrable carapace and swordlike claws, so it is only with great difficulty and loss of life that even an well-organzied hunt can bring one down.
If the hunt is succesful, the hunt then works together to drag the behemoth carcass far into the arid desert until they find a receptive female and her brood burrow. The members of the hunt each enlarge the burrow and each mates with the female, who then lays her eggs into the giant behemoth carcass as the males conceal the entrance. The hunt splits up until the following year, while the female remains behind in the burrow to instruct her larva as they emerge from the carcass. The mother bears sole responsibility for rearing the Slaadi young, and instructs her brood in surviving the desert and in hunting for several years after they emerge.
At least that is the tradition. Recently some Slaad have tried adopting ways from other races, with females participating in hunts and males building aboveground manors for the victory orgy. Such experiments have not been terribly succesful as of yet, but the slaad are known to try anything and go with what works best.
Slaad Adventurers: Slaad see adventuring with other races as a useful way to practice behemoth hunting and to acquire new methods and equipment.
Slaadi Sayings Rare is the mother who does not lose one of her brood also Rare is the hunt which does not lose one of its members - a saying that misfortune is a part of life
That one ate his brothers - an insult indicating that one has acheived success via uncooperativeness
related Human Sayings You probably don't want to know what happens when they do catch one
Is this gonna be a stand-up fight, or another behemoth hunt?
Racial Game Mechanics
Humans: +2 to any stat of choice, +1 feat, +1 skill at max ranks. Automatically proficient with firearms.
Language: Human
Bonus Languages: Suntrade, Moontrade, Terran, Ignan, Aquan, Auran, Sylvan
Bugbears: +2 Str, +2 Con, DR 2/-, Get to wield weapons and have melee reach as if they were large size. Darkvision 30' Immune to fear effects.
Language: Goblin, Suntrade.
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Moontrade.
Changelings: Alter Self to any humanoid form at will, may add +2 racial to Str, or Dex or Con, and may change that assignment during play as a swift action. +2 Bluff and to Disguise
Language: Human, Suntrade, Moontrade
Bonus Languages: Any (even secret languages)
Dryads: +2 Wis +2 Cha, get a climb speed of 20', get +2 to sense motive and knowledge: nature checks and get an Ancestral Memory ability that works like Bardic Knowledge.
Language: Dryad, Kobold
Bonus Languages: Suntrade, Moontrade, Dryad, Gnoll, Goblin, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad
Gnolls: +2 Str +2 Dex. +2 to Intimidate and Survival Checks, only need one successful save to fight off the effects of Poison and Disease and get to take a standard action while at or below 0 HP.
Language: Gnoll, Lamia
Bonus Languages: Suntrade, Dryad, Goblin, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Human
Goblins: -2 Str (size) +2 Dex, +2 Wis. Small Size, so get +1 size to AC, +1 size to attack, +4 size to Hide, have to use small weapons and have load limits that are 3/4th that of a medium characters. Goblins get a +2 racial bonus to Move Silently, Listen and Spot, get darkvision 60', may fight while squeezing at no penalty and do not take the usual -4 penalty for attacking while grappling.
Language: Goblin, Suntrade.
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Moontrade
Hobgoblins: +2 Dex +2 Con, +4 move silently, darkvision 60', automatically proficient with all reach weapons, regardless of class.
Language: Goblin, Suntrade.
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Moontrade
Kobolds: -2 Str (size) +2 Dex +2 Int, Small Size, so get +1 size to AC, +1 size to attack, +4 size to Hide, have to use small weapons and have load limits that are 3/4th that of a medium characters. Burrow 10', Scent. +2 racial to Search, +2 racial to Disable Device
Languages: Kobold, Dryad
Bonus Languages: Gnoll, Goblin, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Moontrade
Kuo-Toa +2 Con, +2 Cha Aquatic, Swim 50', Whenever a Kuo-Toa deals electric damage from any source (spell, item, weapon, or ability) they deal an additional amount of electric damage equal to the lesser of their character level or their Cha bonus. Get +2 racial to decipher script and +2 racial to handle animal,
Language: Kuo-Toa, Gnoll
Bonus Languages: Dryad,Goblin, Kobold, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Suntrade, Aquan, Human
Lamia: +2 Str, +2 Cha, low-light vision, +2 Climb +2 Jump +2 Swim +2 Gather Info
Female: Sprint (Ex): may increase their movement by +25'+an additional 5'/level. The lamia must make a Fortitude save at start of each turn after using this ability or become fatigued. Save difficulty is number of previous rounds during this encounter the lamia has used this ability. A fatigued or exhausted lamia may not use this abilitiy.
Male: Mighty Roar (Ex): As a full round action, a lamia may roar so loudly that it deals damage to foes. This is cone out to the end of Close range, that deafens for 1 minute and deals 1d6+ another 1d6 per 2 levels sonic damage. Targets may make a Fortitude save (DC is Cha based) for half damage and no deafness. This may be used at will, but the lamia may not use this ability two rounds in a row nor while fatigued or exhausted
Language: Lamia, Suntrade
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Goblin, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Moontrade.
Lizardfolk: +2 Con, +2 Wis, Aquatic, Swim 50' . +2 racial to balance and +2 racial to tumble, automatically proficient with the net and Bola. +4 racial bonus to trip or resist a trip attempt.
Language: Lizardfolk
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Suntrade, Aquan.
Pixies -4 Str (size) +2 Dex, +2 Cha Tiny Size, so get +2 size to AC, +2 size to attack, +8 size to Hide, have to use tiny weapons, have 0 ft of natural reach and have load limits that are 1/2 that of a medium characters. Fly 40' (perfect) - but flying is as strenuous as running. +2 racial to handle animal. Get to detect magic, daze and lullaby as at-will SLAs.
Poison Sting: natural weapon dealing 1 point of damage and poison. Poison Save DC=10+1/2 level + Con mod. Initial damage 1 con, secondary damage unconsciousness until cured or healed (heal check DC = save DC). Pixies naturally produce enough poison to use this ability a number of times per day equal to their level plus their Con bonus.
Language: Pixie, Suntrade
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Goblin, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Auran, Moontrade
Slaad: +2 Con +2 Int. +2 to any single knowledge of choice. May use Resist Elements on themselves as (Sp) ability once per day per level
Slippery (Ex): Sladd may make a check to escape a grapple as a swift action
Language: Slaad
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Goblin, Gnoll, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Suntrade
Note: All playable races get a base land speed of 30'.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Fri Jun 17, 2011 1:39 am, edited 15 times in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:07 am

IV. Feats (I swiped these from the Tomes with some tweaks here and there)
The New Feat System:
Feat chains are gone. Secondly, the vast majority of feats don't have prerequisites at all, they scale. A [Combat] feat scales to your Base Attack Bonus, a [Skill] feat scales to your ranks in a skill, and a [Metamagic] feat scales to the highest level spell you can cast (or they would if any Metamagic feats had actually been revised for this, deal)
Freebies that used to be feats, but everybody gets to use now
Martial and Exotic Weapon Proficiency:
In addition to proficiencies provided by their race and class, everybody may be proficient in one extra simple, martial or exotic weapon per point of BAB they have. It's not required nor expected that you define this at chargen or level-up, instead if you acquire a new exotic weapon in the game you may simply narrate a training montage during which you master the weapon.
Expertise: You leverage your combat skill into defense rather than offense.
Requirement: You must make an attack action and have a BAB of at least +1. You need not specifically attack an enemy.
Effect: Before making an attack roll, you may take an attack penalty of up to your BAB on this attack and all further attacks until your next turn, and gain an equal Dodge Bonus to AC. You may only use this option once per turn.
Power Attack: You leverage your combat skill into devastating attacks at the expense of accuracy.
Requirement: You must make an attack action and have a BAB of at least +1.
Effect: Before making an attack roll, you may voluntarily take an attack penalty of up to your BAB, and inflict two times that amount in extra damage with that attack. You may take this option on any or all of your attacks if you wish.
COMBAT FEATS
Armor Mastery: Light Armor [Combat]
You are proficient in wearing light armor
Benefits: You suffer only the usual armor check penalties of any light armor worn
+1: You may treat the armor bonus of any light armor you wear as though it were two points higher than normal
+6: You may completely ignore the Armor Check Penalty and Arcane Spell Failure chance for any light armor which has an Armor Check Penalty of half your Base Attack Bonus or less.
+11: Magical Transformation Montage: As a swift action, you may change out of your current outfit and into any suit of light armor you own. No matter where the armor is stored, nor what restraints are upon you, the armor instantly appears upon your person.
+16: You may treat the maximum dexterity bonus of any light armor you wear as though it were two points higher.
Armor Mastery: Medium Armor [Combat]
You are proficient in wearing medium armor
Benefits: You suffer only the usual armor check penalties of any medium armor worn
+1: You may treat the maximum dexterity bonus and the armor bonus of any medium armor you wear as though they were each one point higher.
+6: Not Dead Yet: While you are wearing medium armor you cannot be slain without being knocked out first. The way this works is that any attack which would reduce you to -10 or fewer hit points, or any effect which would kill you outright instead merely reduce you to -1 HP. This ability does not apply while you are at negative hit points
+11: You may completely ignore the Armor Check Penalty and Arcane Spell Failure chance for any medium armor which has an Armor Check Penalty of half your Base Attack Bonus or less
+16: You apply the armor bonus granted by medium armor you wear to your Touch AC.
Armor Mastery: Heavy Armor [Combat]
You are proficient in wearing heavy armor that is nonstandard for your class
Benefits: You suffer only the usual armor check penalties of any heavy armor worn
+1: You treat maximum dexterity bonus of any heavy armor you wear as though it was two points higher.
+6: It's just a flesh wound: If you are wearing heavy armor you may use an immediate action to reduce a critical hit you suffer to merely a normal hit.
+11: You may completely ignore the Armor Check Penalty and Arcane Spell Failure chance for any heavy armor which has an Armor Check Penalty of half your Base Attack Bonus or less.
+16: Whenever it would be more advantageous for you to do so, you may consider any heavy armor you wear to be medium or light armor instead. Thus you may move at full speed in heavy armor by treating it as light, you may apply feats that apply to light or medium armor to your heavy armor, and so forth.
Blind Fighting [Combat]
You don't have to see to kill.
Benefits: You may reroll your miss chances caused by concealment.
+1: While impaired visually, you may move your normal speed without difficulty.
+6: You have Blindsense out to 60', this allows you to know the location of all creatures within 60'.
+11: You have Tremorsense out to 120', this allows you to "see" anything within 120' that is touching the earth.
+16: You cannot be caught flat footed.
Blitz [Combat]
You go all out and try to achieve goals in a proactive manner.
Benefits: While charging, you may opt to lose your Dexterity Bonus to AC for one round, but inflicting an extra d6 of damage if you hit.
+1: You may go all out when attacking in melee, adding your Base Attack Bonus to your damage, but provoking an Attack of Opportunity.
+6: Bonus attacks made in a Full Attack for having a high BAB are made with a -2 penalty instead of a -5 penalty.
+11: Every time you inflict damage upon an opponent with your melee attacks, you may immediately use an Intimidate attempt against that opponent as a bonus action.
+16: You may make a Full Attack action as a Standard Action.
Combat Looting [Combat]
You can put things into your pants in the middle of combat.
Benefits: You may sheathe or store an object as a free action.
+1: You get a +3 bonus to Disarm attempts. Picking up objects off the ground does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
+6: As a Swift action, you may take a ring, amulet/necklace, headband, bracer, or belt from an opponent you have successfully grappled. You may pick up an item off the ground in the middle of a move action.
+11: If you are grappling with an opponent, you may activate or deactivate their magic items with a successful Use Magic Device check. You may make Appraise checks as a free action.
+16: You can take 10 on Use Magic Device and Sleight of Hand checks.
Combat School [Combat]
You are a member of a completely arbitrary fighting school that has a number of recognizable signature fighting moves.
Benefits:First, name your fighting style (such as "Hammer and Anvil Technique" or "Crescent Moon Style", or "Way of the Lightning Mace"). This fighting style only works with a small list of melee weapons that you have to describe the connectedness to the DM in a half-way believable way. Now, whenever you are using that technique in melee combat, you gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls.
+1: Your immersion in your technique gives you great martial prowess, you gain a +2 to damage rolls in melee combat.
+6: When you strike an opponent with the signature moves of your fighting school in melee, they must make a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + ½ your level + your Strength bonus) or become dazed for one round. This can only affect each opponent so struck once per each round - no mater how many times you strike them, they only make one single save against being dazed until the next initiative go-round.
+11: You may take 10 on attack rolls while using your special techniques. The DC to disarm you of a school appropriate weapon is increased by 4.
+16: You may add +5 to-hit on any one attack you make after the first each turn. If you hit an opponent twice in one round, all further attacks this round against that opponent are made with The Edge.
Command [Combat] [Leadership]
You lead tiny men.
Benefits: You have a Command Rating equal to your Base Attack Bonus divided by five (round up).
+1: You can muster a group of followers. Your leadership score is your Base Attack Bonus plus your Charisma Modifier.
+6: You are able to delegate command to a loyal cohort. A cohort is an intelligent and loyal creature with a CR at least 2 less than your character level. Cohorts gain levels when you do.
+11: With a Swift Action you may rally troops, allowing all allies within medium range of yourself to reroll their saves vs. Fear and gain a +2 Morale Bonus to attack and damage rolls for 1 minute. This is a language-dependent ability that may be used an unlimited number of times.
+16: Your allies gain a +2 morale bonus to all saving throws if they can see you and you are within medium range.
Danger Sense [Combat]
Maybe Spiders tell you what's up. You certainly react to danger with uncanny effectiveness.
Benefits: You get a +3 bonus on Initiative checks.
+1: For the purpose of Search, Spot, and Listen, you are always considered to be "actively searching". You also get Uncanny Dodge.
+6: You may take 10 on Listen, Spot, and Search checks.
+11: You may make a Sense Motive check (opposed by your opponent's Bluff check) immediately whenever any creature approaches within 60' of you with harmful intent. If you succeed, you know the location of the creature even if you cannot see it.
+16: You are never surprised and always act on the first round of any combat.
Elusive Target [Combat]
You are very hard to hit when you want to be.
Benefits: You gain a +2 Dodge bonus to AC.
+1: Your opponents do not gain flanking or higher ground bonuses against you.
+6: Your opponents do not inflict extra damage from the Power Attack option.
+11: Diverting Defense - As an immediate action, you may redirect an attack against you to any creature in your threatened range, friend or foe. You may not redirect an attack to the creature making the attack.
+16: As an immediate action, you may make an attack that would normally hit you miss instead.
Expert Tactician [Combat]
You benefit your allies so good they remember you long time.
Benefits: You gain a +4 bonus when flanking instead of the normal +2 bonus. Your allies who flank with you gain the same advantage.
+1: You may Feint as an Immediate action.
+6: As a move action, you may make any 5' square adjacent to yourself into difficult ground.
+11: For determining flanking with your allies, you may count your location as being 5' in any direction from your real location.
+16: You ignore Cover bonuses less than full cover.
Ghost Hunter [Combat]
You smack around those folks in the spirit world.
Benefits: Your attacks have a 50% chance of striking incorporeal opponents even if they are not magical.
+1: You can hear incorporeal and ethereal creatures as if they lacked those traits (note that shadows and the like rarely bother to actively move silently).
+6: You can see invisible and ethereal creatures as if they lacked those traits.
+11: Your attacks count as if you had the Ghost Touch property on your weapons.
+16: Any Armor or shield you use benefits from the Ghost Touch quality.
Gnat and Giant Slayer [Combat]
You are skilled in fighting opponents who are much larger or much smaller than yourself
Benefits: When making opposed Spot or Grapple checks against creatures of a different size than yourself, you may add a bonus equal to half of their size modifier for Hide or Grapple to your own roll
+1: You gain a dodge bonus to your AC against the attacks of creatures smaller than you, this bonus is equal to their size bonus to attacks.
+6: You may make melee attacks against creatures larger than you from the edge of their natural reach. This allows you to attack them without needing to enter their threatened area.
+11: You ignore all size modifiers during any Bull Rush, Trip, or Disarm attempt in which you are the attacker or defender.
+16: You now totally ignore all of your opponents' size modifiers for everything. Your own still apply when you want them to.
Gunslinger [Combat]
You are a master of firearms, crossbows or ray spells
Benefits: You do not provoke attacks of opportunity for making a ranged attack while in a threatened square.
+1: Action Hero:You never need to reload any ranged weapon you are proficient in and you never ever run out of ammo, no matter what.
+6: Trick Shot: You may perform Disable Device, Open Lock and Use Rope and similar skill checks by shooting things. Apply any range increment penalties to the skill check.
+11: Carnival of Carnage: Whenever you score a confrimed critical against an opponent with a ranged attack, you may immediately, as a free action, make a ranged attack against any opponent whom you have not scored a critical against this round.
+16: A Silver Bullet for Every Occasion: Your ranged attacks ignore all forms of damage reduction, elemental resistances and hardness.
Great Fortitude [Combat]
You are so tough. Your belly is like a prism.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to your Fortitude Saves.
+1: You die at -20 instead of -10. (This means 10 more points when used with the softened PC death thresholds below)
+6: You gain 1 hit point per level.
+11: You gain DR of 5/-.
+16: You are immune to the fatigued and exhausted conditions. If you are already immune to these conditions, you gain 1 hit point per level for each condition you were already immune to.
Horde Breaker[Combat]
You kill really large numbers of people.
Benefits: You gain a number of extra attacks of opportunity each round equal to your Dexterity Bonus (if positive).
+1: Whenever you drop an opponent with a melee attack, you are entitled to a bonus "cleave" attack against another opponent you threaten. You may not take a 5' step or otherwise move before taking this bonus attack. This Cleave attack is considered an attack of opportunity.
+6: You may take a bonus 5' step every time you are entitled to a Cleave attack, which you may take either before or after the attack.
+11: You may generate an aura of fear on any opponents within 10' of yourself whenever you drop an opponent in melee. The save DC is 10 + the Hit Dice of the dropped creature.
+16: Opponents you have the Edge against provoke an attack of opportunity from you by moving into your threatened area or attacking you.
Hunter [Combat]
You can move around and shoot things with surprising effectiveness.
Benefits: The penalties for using a ranged weapon from an unstable platform (such as a ship or a moving horse) are halved.
+1: shot on the run – you may take a standard action to attack with a ranged weapon in the middle of a move action, taking some of your movement before and some of your movement after your attack. That still counts as your standard and move action for the round.
+6: You suffer no penalties for firing from unstable ground, a running steed, or any of that.
+11: You may take a full round action to take a double move and make a single ranged attack from any point during your movement.
+16: You may take a full round action to run a full four times your speed and make a single ranged attack from any point during your movement. You retain your Dexterity modifier to AC while running.
Insightful Strike [Combat]
You Hack people down with inherent awesomeness.
Benefits: You may use your Wisdom Modifier in place of your Strength Modifier for your melee attack rolls.
+1: Your attacks have The Edge against an opponent who has a lower Wisdom and Dexterity than your own Wisdom, regardless of relative BAB.
+6: Your melee attacks have a doubled critical threat range.
+11: You make horribly telling blows. The extra critical multiplier of your melee attacks is doubled (x2 becomes x3, x3 becomes x5, and x4 becomes x7).
+16: Any Melee attack you make is considered to be made with a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus equal to your Wisdom Modifier (if positive).
Iron Will [Combat]
You are able to grit your teeth and shake off mental influences.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to your Willpower saves.
+1: You gain the slippery mind ability of a Rogue.
+6: If you are stunned, you are dazed instead.
+11: You do not suffer penalties from pain and fear.
+16: You are immune to compulsion effects.
Juggernaut [Combat]
You are an unstoppable Juggernaut.
Benefits: You may be considered one size category larger for the purposes of any size dependant roll you make (such as a Bull Rush, Overrun, or Lift action).
+1: You do not provoke an attack of opportunity for entering an opponent's square.
+6: You gain a +4 bonus to attack and damage rolls to destroy objects. You may shatter a Force Effect by inflicting 30 damage on it.
+11: When you successfully bullrush or overrun an opponent, you automatically Trample them, inflicting damage equal to a natural slam attack for a creature of your size.
+16: You gain the Rock Throwing ability of any standard Giant with a strength equal to or less than yourself.
Lightning Reflexes [Combat]
You are fasty McFastFast. It helps keep you alive.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to your Reflex saves.
+1: You gain Evasion, if you already have Evasion, that stacks to Improved Evasion.
+6: You may make a Balance Check in place of your Reflex save.
+11: You gain a +3 bonus to your Initiative.
+16: When you take the Full Defense Action, add your level to your AC.
Mage Slayer [Combat]
You have trained long and hard to kill magic users. Maybe you hate them, maybe you just noticed that most of the really dangerous creatures in the world use magic.
Benefits: You gain Spell Resistance of 5 + Character Level.
+1: Damage you inflict is considered "ongoing damage" for the purposes of concentration checks made before the beginning of your next round. All your attacks in a round are considered the same source of continuing damage.
+6: Creatures cannot cast defensively within your threat range.
+11: Your attacks ignore Deflection bonuses to AC.
+16: When a creature uses a [Teleportation] effect within medium range of yourself, you may choose to be transported as well. This is not an action.
Murderous Intent [Combat]
You stab people in the face.
Benefits: You may make a coup de grace as a standard action.
+1: When you kill an opponent, you gain a +2 Morale Bonus to your attack and damage rolls for 1 minute.
+6: Once per round, you may take an attack of opportunity against an opponent who is denied their Dexterity bonus to AC.
+11: You may take a Coup de Grace action against opponents who are stunned.
+16: You may take a Coup de Grace action against opponents who are dazed.
Phalanx Fighter[Combat]
You fight well in a group.
Benefits: You may take attacks of opportunity even while flat footed.
+1: Any Dodge bonus to AC you gain is also granted to any adjacent allies for as long as you benefit from the bonus and your ally remains adjacent.
+6: Charging is an action that provokes an attack of opportunity from you. This attack is considered to be a "readied attack" if it matters for purposes like setting against a charge.
+11: You may attack with a reach weapon as if it was not a reach weapon. Thus, a medium creature would normally threaten at 5' and 10' with a reach weapon.
+16: You may take an Aid Another action once per round as a free action. You provide double normal bonuses from this effect.
Point Blank Shot [Combat]
You are crazy good using a ranged weapon in close quarters.
Benefits: When you are within 30' of your target, your attacks with a ranged weapon gain a +3 bonus to-hit.
+1: You add your base attack bonus to damage with any ranged attack within the first range increment.
+6: You may perform a coup-de-grace with a ranged weapon against a helpless opponent within 30 ft of you
+11: When armed with a Ranged Weapon, you may make attacks of opportunity against opponents who provoke them within 30' of you. Movement within this area does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
+16: With a Full Attack action, you may fire a ranged weapon once at every single opponent within the first range increment of your weapon. You gain no additional attacks for having a high BAB. Make a single attack roll for the entire round, and compare to the armor class of each opponent within range.
Run Like the Wind [Combat]
Benefit: When running, you move five times your normal speed (if wearing medium, light, or no armor and carrying no more than a medium load) or four times your speed (if wearing heavy armor or carrying a heavy load).. While running, you retain your Dexterity bonus to AC.
+1: Your endurance for running increases tenfold: You may run for a number of minutes equal to your Constitution score, and you only need to make a check to continue running once each minute.
+6: Your movement increases by 10' with each movement mode you have
+11: You may make a move action as a swift action.
+16: You may move at full speed and run while fatigued, exhausted, slowed or suffering wounds that would otherwise impede your movement (such as those from Spike Stones or the Subtle Cut feat).
Shield Mastery [Combat]
You are proficient in using shields and great shields
Benefits: You suffer only the usual armor check penalty for using a shield or great shield
+1: You may completely ignore the Armor Check Penalty and Arcane Spell Failure chance for any shield or greatshield which has an Armor Check Penalty of half your Base Attack Bonus or less
+6: When an opponent initiates a grapple against you, you may opt to escape by sacrificing your shield. Effectively, their grapple / grab on attempt results in disarming you of your shield instead.
+11: You may perfrom a shield bash at range. Treat this as thrown weapon with a range increment of 10' and the returning property.
+16: You apply the armor bonus granted by your shield to your Touch AC.
Sniper [Combat]
Your shooting is precise and dangerous.
Benefits: Your range increments are 50% longer than they would ordinarily be. Any benefit of being within 30' of an opponent is retained out to 60'.
+1: Precise Shot - You do not suffer a -4 penalty when firing a ranged weapon into melee and never hit an unintended target in close combats or grapples.
+6: Sharp Shooting – Your ranged attacks ignore Cover Bonuses (total cover still bones you).
+11: Opponents struck by your ranged attacks do not automatically know what square your attack came from, and must attempt to find you normally.
+16: Any time you hit an opponent with a ranged weapon, it is counted as a critical threat. If your weapon already had a 19-20 threat range, increase its critical multiplier by 1.
Subtle Cut [Combat]
You cut people so bad they have to ask you about it later.
Benefits: Any time you damage an opponent, that damage is increased by 1.
+1: As a standard action, you can make a weapon attack that also reduces a creature's movement rate. For every 5 points of damage this attack does, reduce the creature's movement by 5'. This penalties lasts until the damage is healed.
+6: As a standard action, you may make a weapon attack that also does 2d4 points of Dexterity damage.
+11: Any weapon attack that you make at this level acts as if the weapon had the wounding property.
+16: As a standard action, you may make an attack that dazes your opponent. This effect lasts one round, and has a DC of 10 + half your level + your Intelligence bonus.
Two Weapon Fighting [Combat]
When armed with two weapons, you fight with two weapons rather than picking and choosing and fighting with only one. Kind of obvious in retrospect.
Benefits: You suffer no penalty for doing things with your off-hand. When you make an attack or full-attack action, you may make a number of attacks with your off-hand weapon equal to the number of attacks you are afforded with your primary weapon.
+1: While armed with two weapons, you gain an extra Attack of Opportunity each round for each attack you would be allowed for your BAB, these extra attacks of opportunity must be made with your off-hand.
+6: You gain a +2 Shield Bonus to your armor class when fighting with two weapons and not flat footed.
+11: You may Feint as a Swift action while fighting with two weapons.
+16: While fighting with two weapons and not flat footed you may add the enhancement bonus of either your primary or your off-hand weapon to your Shield Bonus to AC.
Weapon Finesse [Combat]
You are incredibly deft with a sword.
Benefits: You may use your Dexterity Modifier instead of your Strength modifier for calculating your melee attack bonus.
+1: Your special attacks are considered to have the Edge when you attack an opponent with a Dexterity modifier smaller than yours, even if your Base Attack Bonus is not larger.
+6: You may use your Dexterity modifier in place of your Strength modifier when attempting to trip an opponent.
+11: You may use your Dexterity modifier in place of your Strength modifier for calculating your melee damage.
+16: opportunist - Once per turn, when an opponent is struck, you may take an attack of opportunity on that opponent.
Whirlwind [Combat]
You are just as dangerous to everyone around you as to anyone around you.
Benefits: As a full round action, you may make a single melee attack against each opponent you can reach. Roll one attack roll and compare to each available opponent's AC individually.
+1: You gain a +3 bonus to Balance checks.
+6: As a full round action, you may take a regular move action and make a single melee attack against each opponent you can reach at any point during your movement. Roll one attack roll and compare to each available opponent's AC individually.
+11: Until your next round after making a whirlwind attack, you may take an attack of opportunity against any opponent that enters your threatened area.
+16: As a full round action, you take a charge action, overrunning any creature in your path, and may make a single melee attack against each opponent you can reach at any point during your movement. Roll one attack roll and compare to each available opponent's AC individually.
Zen Archery [Combat]
You are very calm about shooting people in the face. That's a good place to be.
Benefits: You may use your Wisdom Modifier in place of your Dexterity Modifier on ranged attack rolls.
+1: Any opponent you can hear is considered an opponent you can see for purposes of targeting them with ranged attacks.
+6: If you cast a Touch Spell, you can deliver it with a ranged weapon (though you must hit with a normal attack to deliver the spell).
+11: As a Full Round Action, you may make one ranged attack with a +20 Insight bonus to hit.
+16: As a Full Round Action, you may make one ranged attack with a +20 Insight bonus to hit. If this attack hits, your attack is automatically upgraded to a critical threat. If the threat range of your weapon is 19-20, your critical multiplier is increased by one.
SKILL FEATS
Hint: there's one for each skill save Diplomacy and Intimidate (which get 2) and Craft, Knowledge, Perform, and Profession (which don't get any), so use the find function for skills you're curious about
Edit: or use the spiffy list in this spolier tag
Appraise:Acquirer's Eye
Balance:Steady Stance
Bluff:Con Artist
Climb:Super Scaler
Concentration:Combat Casting
Craft:-none-
Decipher Script:Cryptographer
Diplomacy:Leadership; Persuasive
Disable Device:Professional Luddite
Disguise:Many Faced
Escape Artist:Slippery Contortionist
Forgery:Expert Counterfeiter
Gather Information:Detective
Handle Animal:Animal Affinity
Heal:Battlefield Surgeon
Hide:Stealth
Intimidate:Master of Terror
Jump:Leap of the Heavens
Knowledge:-none-
Listen:Alertness
Move Silently:Ghost Step
Open Lock:*skill is subsumed into disable device*
Perform:-none-
Profession:-none-
Ride:Mounted Combat
Search:Investigator
Sense Motive:Natural Empath
Sleight of Hand:Deft Fingers
Speak Language:-none-
Spellcraft:Magical Aptitude
Spot:Sharp-Eyed
Survival:Track
Swim:Swim Like a Fish
Tumble:Acrobatic
Use Magic Device:Item Master
Use Rope:Legendary Wrangler
Acquirer's Eye [Skill]
You know what you want, even if other people have it right now. (This is a Skill feat that scales with your ranks in Appraise.)
Benefits: You gain +3 to your Appraise checks.
4: You automatically know if something is ordinary, masterwork, or magic when looking at it.
9: You can discover the properties of a magic item, including how to activate it (if appropriate) and how many charges are left (if it has them), with a successful Appraise check (DC item's caster level + 10) and 10 minutes of work.
14: Once per round as a free action, you can examine a magic item and attempt an Appraise check (DC item's caster level + 20) to determine its properties, including its functions, how to activate those functions (if necessary), and how many charges it has left (if it has charges).
19: You know what the most valuable piece of treasure is in any collection, such as the most valuable magic item an enemy is wearing or the most valuable object in a dragon's horde, just by looking at the collection. You automatically recognize an artifact when looking at it.
Acrobatic [Skill]
You can totally flip out and kill someone with your gymnastic prowess. (This is a Skill feat that scales with your ranks in Tumble.)
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to Tumble checks.
4: When using the Combat Expertise option, your dodge bonus to AC increases by +1. This further increases by +1 for every ten ranks of Tumble you have (+2 at 14, +3 at 24, and so on).
9: If an opponent attempts to bull-rush, overrun, or trample you, if you succeed on Tumble check of DC 25 + their base attack bonus, their movement continues in a straight line to the maximum allowed by their speed, you remain where you were, and you don't suffer from the effects of their bull-rush, overrun, or trample. If you fail, you provoke an attack of opportunity from that enemy.
14: If you succeed on a DC 40 Tumble check, you can move 10 feet when taking a 5-foot step.
19: If you succeed on a Tumble check against a DC of 30 + an opponent's base attack bonus, an action that would normally provoke an attack of opportunity doesn't.
Alertness [Skill]
Your ears are so sharp you probably wouldn't miss your eyes.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to Listen checks.
4: You can make a Listen check once a round as a free action. You don't take penalties for distractions on your Listen checks.
9: You gain blindsense to 60 feet. You don't take penalties for ambient noise, such as loud winds. Divide any distance penalties you take on Listen checks by two.
14: You gain blindsight to 120 feet.
19: You can hear through magical silence and similar effects, but you take a -20 penalty on your check. Divide any distance penalties you take on Listen checks by five.
Animal Affinity [Skill]
You're one of those people animals just won't leave alone for no apparent reason.
Benefits: You gain the wild empathy ability, with your check equal to your character level plus your Charisma modifier plus any other applicable bonuses. If you already have wild empathy, or later gain it from another source, you gain a +3 bonus on Handle Animal checks.
4: You can handle an animal as a free action, and push it as a move action.
9: You gain the benefits of speak with animals permanently as an extraordinary ability. The DCs for you to rear and train creatures are halved.
14: With a DC 30 Handle Animal check, you can use a mass version of charm animal as a spell-like ability, with save DC equal to 10 + ½ your character level + your Cha modifier and effective caster level equal to your bonus on Handle Animal checks.
19: You can summon animals to your aid. Choose an animal with a CR equal to or less than your character level. Once per hour you may summon a number of animals depending on how much the animal's CR is less than your character level for an hour.
CR, number appearing:
Level - 1, 1
Level - 2, d3
Level - 3, d4
Level - 4, d6
Level - 5, d8
Level - 6, d10
Level - 7, 2d6
Level - 8, 3d6
Level - 9, 3d10
Level - 10, 10+3d6
Level - 11 thru Level -19, roll as if summoning animals ten levels higher, but multiply resulting number by 10.
Battlefield Surgeon [Skill]
You like to cut people open with a saw. But it's good for them. Seriously.
Benefits: You gain +3 to your Heal checks.
4: You can make first aid, treat poison, and treat wound checks as move actions.
9: For every 5 points your Heal check exceeds the DC for long term care, your patients recover another +100% faster. For instance, if your Heal check result is 23, your patients would heal at thrice the normal rate.
14: If you operate on a patient for a minute, they regain hit points equal to your Heal check result. You also may, instead of healing hit point damage, cure any condition that heal could. You may reattach severed limbs, or repair ruined organs, etc if you succeed on a DC 30 check. Patients under your long-term care heal permanent ability drain as if it was ability damage.
19: With one hour of work, 5,000 gp worth of materials (which are consumed in the process), and a DC 40 Heal check, you can restore a creature that has died to life. The subject's soul must be free and willing to return for the effect to work. Your patient comes back from the dead with full hit points and all conditions cured, with no loss of prepared spells or spell slots. You must have a reasonably intact body to work with, though you can reattach missing parts, if you have them, and repair organs. You can restore life to a creature killed by a death effect. You cannot affect constructs, elementals, outsiders (except native outsiders), and undead creatures, nor creatures that have died of old age.
Combat Casting [Skill]
Having a sword sticking out of your chest doesn't noticeably impede your ability to do&#8213;well, just about anything.
Benefits: You gain +3 to your Concentration checks.
4: You can take 10 on Concentration checks and caster level checks.
9: You may maintain concentration on a spell as a move action (DC 25 + spell level). If you beat the DC by 10 or more, you can maintain concentration as a swift action. If you fail your check, you lose concentration.
14: If you would be nauseated, you're sickened instead.
19: All Concentration DCs are halved for you.
Con Artist [Skill]
You can fool some of the people, all of the time.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to Bluff checks.
4: Magic effects that would detect your lies or force you to speak the truth must succeed on a caster level check with DC equal to 10 plus your bonus on Diplomacy checks or fail.
9: Divination magic used on you detects a false alignment of your choice. You can present false surface thoughts to detect thoughts and similar effects, changing your apparent Intelligence score (and thus your apparent mental strength) by as much as 10 points and can place any thought in your "surface thoughts" to be read by such spells or effects.
14: If you beat someone's Sense Motive check by 25, you can instill a suggestion in them, as the spell. This suggestion lasts for one hour for each of your character levels.
19: You are protected from all spells and effects that detect or read emotions or thoughts, as by mind blank.
Cryptographer [Skill]
You're good at reading things no one intended you to.
Benefits: You gain +3 to your Decipher Script checks.
4: You can decipher a written spell (like a scroll) without using read magic, if you succeed on a Decipher Script check of DC 20 + the spell's level. You can try once per day on any particular written spell.
9: You don't trigger written magic traps (like explosive runes or symbols) by reading them. You can disable them with Decipher Script as if you were using Disable Device. You can read the material hidden by a secret page with a DC 25 Decipher Script check.
14: When you cast a spell from a scroll, the spell's save DC is equal to 10 + the spell's level + your Intelligence modifier + any other applicable bonuses, and its caster level is equal to your character level, plus other applicable bonuses.
19: Reading text using Decipher Script is a free action for you. You may disable written magical traps as a swift action, and you can cast 5th-level or lower spells from scrolls as a swift action.
Deft Fingers [Skill]
Your amazing manual dexterity is the talk of princes and princesses.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus on your Sleight of Hand checks.
4: If you draw a hidden weapon and attack with it in the same round, your opponent loses their Dexterity bonus to AC against your first attack with that weapon that round.
9: You can make an adjacent creature or object your size or smaller 'disappear' with your legerdemain. If you succeed on a DC 30 Sleight of Hand check as a standard action, your target can make a Hide check, or you can make the Hide check for them or it. As usual, you can hide larger creatures or objects by taking a -20 cumulative penalty for each size category larger they are than you.
14: With a DC 30 Sleight of Hand check, you can use shrink item as a spell-like ability.
19: With a DC 40 Sleight of Hand check, you can use teleport object as a spell-like ability. You can also retrieve items placed in the Ethereal Plane using teleport object. With a DC 40 Sleight of Hand check, you can use instant summons as a spell-like ability without requiring arcane mark, but you may only designate one item at a time.
Detective [Skill]
You're good at finding things out just by conversing with townsfolk.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus on your Gather Information checks.
4: Your ability to pick up on the social context aids you in establishing rapport. After succeeding on a Gather Information check, you gain a +2 bonus to Knowledge checks, Sense Motive checks, and checks for Cha-based skills in the same milieu.
9: With 2d6 hours of research, you can study a specific topic, such as a particular location or a well-known local monster, and substitute a Gather Information check for any Knowledge checks pertaining to the topic. You need access to local informants, a library, scholars, or other appropriate sources to use this ability.
14: You can gain the benefits of legend lore with a DC 30 Gather Information check. If you have the person or thing at hand, or are in the place, this takes a day; otherwise, it consumes the time as normal for legend lore. You need access to individuals or resources with relevant knowledge to use this ability.
19: With a DC 40 Gather Information check and 1d4+1 days of talking to people, you can either find an answer to any question you can pose in ten words or less, or find out where you need to go to get the answer. You need access to individuals or resources with relevant knowledge to use this ability. (Josh says: this is Borken on first principles, don't you ask me about P vs NP, the Reimann Hypotosis, or similar topics)
Dreadful Demeanor [Skill]
People know you're a one bad mutha the instant you enter the room.
Benefits: You gain +3 to your Intimidate checks.
4: You can demoralize an opponent as a move action.
9: Opponents you've demoralized remain shaken until they lose sight of you.
14: Opponents who would be panicked because of your fear effects are cowered instead.
19: Any time you confirm a critical hit in melee, your target is cowered. This is a fear effect.
Expert Counterfeiter [Skill]
You aren't a common forger, you're an artiste.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to Forgery checks.
4: When creating a forgery, you roll twice and take the better result.
9: In situations where you can present a legal document of some sort, you can substitute a Forgery check for a Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check.
14: You can purchase items with counterfeit bills of exchange, falsified credit vouchers, and the like. You can acquire any item available through the gold economy in this method. Normally, your counterfeits are so good they don't provoke suspicion, but if someone examines them, they must still beat you in an opposed Forgery check to recognize they're not the real thing.
19: You can duplicate a scroll with eight hours of work and a Forgery check against DC 35 + the spell's level. The duplicate functions in all manners like the original scroll. You must have appropriate materials on hand for scribing the scroll, and if the spell requires XP or expensive material components, you must provide the requisite components or make up the XP cost in materials.
Ghost Step [Skill]
You might as well be incorporeal for all the noise you make.
Benefits: You gain +3 to your Move Silently checks.
4: Anyone attempting to use Survival to track you must beat you in an opposed check against Move Silently.
9: Creatures with blindsense, blindsight, tremorsense, or similar abilities do not automatically detect your presence, but must succeed on a Listen check, opposed by your Move Silently check, to notice you.
14: With success on a DC 30 Move Silently check as a standard action, you can control ambient sounds within 30 feet of yourself for a round. You can specifically duplicate any effect from control sound (XPH), silence, or ventriloquism, and in general can make sound you've heard come from any part of the area, displace sounds in the area, or suppress any sounds or sounds. Also, if you take a -10 DC penalty on your Move Silently check, anyone within 30 feet of you can substitute your check result for their own.
19: You're so quiet that people don't even remember you when you're standing right next to them. Your opponents count as flat-footed whenever you attack them.
Investigator [Skill]
You have an eye for detail and so much patience that going through a 100' by 100' room inch-by-inch doesn't even try it.
Benefits: You can use Search to find traps like a character with trapfinding. If you already have that ability, you gain +3 to your Search checks. Search is always a class skill for you.
4: You can Search a 10' by 10' area with a full-round action.
9: You automatically sense any active magic effects in an area you search. If you succeed on a DC 20 Search check, you can determine their number, strength, and school, as if usingdetect magic.
14: You can Search objects or areas within 30 feet of yourself. You can make a Search check as a swift action.
19: You have an intuitive sense for hidden things. Anytime something that someone has hidden is within 60 feet of you, you know it; if there are multiple things, you know how many. However, you must still make Search checks as normal to locate them.
Item Master [Skill]
You make magic items do things you want.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to Use Magic Device checks.
4: You don't suffer mishaps with magic items.
9: When rolling Use Magic Device checks or random effects from magic items, you may roll twice and take the better result.
14: With a swift action and a successful Use Magic Device check against a DC of 30 + the item's caster level, you can gain the benefits of a slotted magic item without needing to have a slot available (for instance, a third ring on your finger) for one round.
19: When you activate a wand or staff, you can substitute a spell slot instead of using a charge. The spell slot must be one you have not used for the day, though you may lose a prepared spell to emulate a wand charge (you may not lose prepared spells from your school of specialty, if any). The spell slot lost must be equal to or higher in level than the spell stored in the wand, including any level-increasing metamagic enhancements. When using spell trigger, spell completion, or other consumable magic items, if you succeed on a Use Magic Device check of 40 + the caster level of the item as a swift action, the item or charges thereof are not consumed.
Leadership [Leadership] [Skill]
You convince people that obeying you is a good career move.
Benefits: You can awe even strangers and enemies into following your orders. With a DC 20 Diplomacy check, you can use command as a spell-like ability, with save DC equal to 10 + ½ your character level + your Cha modifier.
4: Your natural talent for leaderships attracts followers. Your leadership score is equal to your ranks in Diplomacy plus your Charisma modifier.
9: You persuade someone that you are so awesome that they should follow you around all the time, acquiring a cohort. A cohort is an intelligent and loyal creature with a CR at least 2 less than your character level. Cohorts gain levels when you do.
14: Your natural majesty stirs guilt in those who refuse your demands. With a DC 30 Diplomacy check, you can use geas as a spell-like ability, but it offers a Will save at DC 10 + ½ your character level + your Cha modifier.
19: You command the loyalty of armies&#8213;even opposing ones. With a DC 40 Diplomacy check, you can use greater command as a spell-like ability, with save DC equal to 10 + ½ your character level + your Cha modifier and effective caster level equal to your bonus on Diplomacy checks.
Leap of the Heavens [Skill]
You jump good.
Benefits: The DCs for your jumps don't double if you fail to get a running start, and if you do, you get a +4 bonus on the check. You can hop up (see the Jump skill description) onto any object shorter than your height without a Jump check.
4: You don't take falling damage, though you can still take damage if something falls on you.
9: You ignore the effects of difficult terrain on your movement speed, skill checks, and ability to charge.
14: If you succeed a DC 40 Jump check as a swift action, you gain the benefits of fly for one round.
19: For every five ranks you have in Jump, your movement speeds increase by 10'. (This also increases your Jump checks, as usual.)
Legendary Wrangler [Skill]
No one can tell where you end and your ropes begin.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to Use Rope checks and proficiency with the bolas, net, and whip.
4: You can use a rope as if it was a bolas or whip, and you can substitute your ranks in Use Rope for your Base Attack Bonus for combat maneuvers made with it. You can also use it as a net, replacing the normal DC 20 Escape Artist check for someone entangled with it with your Use Rope check. You can throw a grappling hook, tie a knot, tie a special knot, or tie a rope around yourself one-handed as a move action. You don't provoke attacks of opportunity for using Use Rope.
9: You can use a rope, whip, grappling hook, or similar item to manipulate any item within 30 feet of yourself as easily as if it was in your hands; you can also make disarm, entangling (as if with a net), and trip attempts with it. You can move around on ropes and similar structures, like webs, as easily as you can on the ground.
14: With a DC 30 Use Rope check, you can use animate rope as a spell-like ability; you can use any ability you can with an ordinary rope with an animated rope.
19: You can manipulate items out to 60 feet with ropes and similar items. You can use ropes for the grab on and hold down grapple maneuvers. When using combat maneuvers with ropes, you can replace the relevant check (disarm, grapple, trip, etc.) with a Use Rope check.
Magical Aptitude [Skill]
You're crazy good at manipulating magic.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus on Spellcraft checks.
4: When counterspelling, you may use a spell of the same school that is one or more spell levels higher than the target spell.
9: You can dismiss a spell as a free action. You can redirect a spell as a move action, if it normally requires a standard action, or as a swift action, if it normally takes a move action. You gain a +3 bonus on dispel checks.
14: You can counter a spell as an immediate action.
19: You automatically know which spells or magic effects are active on upon any individual object you see, as if you had greater arcane sight active on yourself.
Many-Faced [Skill]
You change identities so often even you don't remember what you look like anymore.
Benefits: You gain +3 to your Disguise checks.
4: When creating a disguise, you roll twice and take the better result.
9: You can use Nystul's magic aura as a spell-like ability at will, with a caster level equal to your character level and a save DC of 10 + ½ your character level + your Cha modifier.
14: You can create a disguise as a full-round action, but you take a -10 penalty to your Disguise check. You can't be under direct observation while doing this, but you can use Bluff to create a diversion to allow you to change guises, as for the Hide skill.
19: You can choose an appearance that anyone viewing you with scrying or other divination magic sees instead of your "real" appearance. Even someone who benefits from true seeingmust succeed on a caster level check (DC 11 + your ranks in Disguise) to penetrate the illusion.
Master of Terror [Leadership] [Skill]
You scare people so bad they follow you around hoping you won't hurt them.
Benefits: Whenever you use Intimidate in combat, it affects everyone within 30 feet of you.
4: You gain followers. Your leadership score is equal to your ranks in Intimidate plus your Charisma modifier.
9: You gain a cohort who enjoys frightening your underlings almost as much as you do. A cohort is an intelligent and loyal creature with a CR at least 2 less than your character level. Cohorts gain levels when you do.
14: You gain the frightful presence ability. When you speak or attack, enemies within 30 feet of you must succeed on a Will save (DC 10 + your character level + your Cha modifier) or become shaken for 5d6 rounds. An opponent that succeeds on its saving throw is immune to your frightful presence for 24 hours.
19: Your opponents take a -2 morale penalty to saving throws if they can see you and you are within medium range (based on your character level).
Mounted Combat [Skill]
You are at your best when fighting with an ally that you are sitting on. This is a Skill Feat that scales with your ranks in Ride.
Benefits: Once per turn, you may attempt to negate an attack that hits your mount by making a Ride skill check with a DC equal to the AC that the attack hit. Attacks that do not require an attack roll cannot be negated in this way.
4: While Mounted, you may take a charge attack at any point along your mount's movement, so long as your mount is moving in a straight line up to the point of your attack.
9: You suffer no penalty to your ride or handle animal skill checks when training or riding unusual mounts such as magical beasts or dragons.
14: You may use your Ride Check in place of your mount's Balance, Jump, Climb, or Reflex Saving Throws.
19: Any time a spell effect would target your mount, you may elect to have it target you instead. Any time a spell effect would target you, you may elect to have it affect your Mount instead.
Natural Empath [Skill]
You read people like books.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to Sense Motive checks.
4: You can quickly size up potential opponents. If you succeed on a Sense Motive check as a free action, opposed by their Bluff, you can tell if they're an even match (their CR equals your character level), an easy challenge (their CR is 1-3 less than your level), irrelevant (their CR is 4 or more less than your level), stronger (their CR is 1-3 higher than your level), or overwhelmingly powerful (their CR is 4 or more higher than your level). You can use this ability once on a particular creature every 24 hours.
9: If you succeed on a Sense Motive check, opposed by Bluff, you know your opponent's alignment. If you beat their Bluff by 20 or more, you can read their surface thoughts, as if during the third round of detect thoughts.
14: You have an uncanny intuition for when people are interested in you. Any time someone uses a remote spell or effect, like scrying, to examine you, you know you're under observation and if you make a Sense Motive check that beats their Bluff check, you know some details about them: if you've met them before, you recognize them, but if not, you get a basic idea of their reasons for their interest in you. Similarly, if you use Sense Motive on someone influenced by an enchantment effect, you can find out who created the effect with a Sense Motive check opposed by the controller's Bluff, getting the same information.
19: You know what people are going to do before they do. Any time someone you're aware of attacks you, make a Sense Motive check opposed by their Bluff: if you succeed, you get a free surprise round.
Persuasive [Skill]
When you tell you people something that contradicts the evidence of their own eyes, they believe you. (This is a Skill feat that scales with your ranks in Diplomacy.)
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to Diplomacy checks.
4: Your words can stop fights before they start. Any creature that can hear you speak must make a Will save (DC 10 + ½ your character level + your Cha modifier) or it can't attack you directly; however, you aren't protected from its area or effect spells, or similar abilities. Any creature that succeeds on its save is immune to this ability for 24 hours. You may use nonattack spells or otherwise act, but if you attack the creature or its allies, it may attack you. This is a mind-affecting, language-dependent charm effect.
9: You can fascinate creatures with your silver tongue. You can affect as many HD of creatures as your bonus on Diplomacy checks; any creature that fails a Will save (DC 10 + ½ your character level + your Cha modifier) becomes fascinated. If you use this ability in combat, each target gains a +2 bonus on its saving throw. If the spell affects only a single creature not in combat at the time, the saving throw has a penalty of -2. While a subject is fascinated by this spell, it reacts as though it were two steps more friendly in attitude, allowing you to make a single request of an affected creature. The request must be brief and reasonable. Even after the spell ends, the creature retains its new attitude toward you, but only with respect to that particular request. A creature that fails its saving throw does not remember that you enspelled it.
14: You can influence even hostile creatures into talking things over with you. With a DC 30 Diplomacy check, you can use a language-dependent version of charm monster as a spell-like ability, with save DC equal to 10 + ½ your character level + your Cha modifier; this is a mind-affecting charm effect.
19: You can convince an entire group of enemies to listen to you. If you succeed on a DC 40 Diplomacy check, your charm monster ability improves to mass charm monster, with a caster level equal to your bonus on Diplomacy checks.
Professional Luddite [Skill]
You've learned to break machines because you're an antitechnology fanatic&#8213;or maybe you just work for the local protection racket.
Benefits: You can use Disable Device on magic traps like a character with trapfinding. If you already have that ability, you gain +3 to your Disable Device checks. Disable Device is always a class skill for you.
4: You can use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Intelligence modifier for Disable Device checks. Darkness and blindness do not hinder your ability to disable devices.
9: You can reduce the amount of time required to disable a device. For each multiple of 10 you beat the required DC, you can decrease the time required from 2d4 rounds to 1d4 rounds to 1 round to a standard action to a move-equivalent action to a free action.
14: You can use Disable Device to end any persistent effect or area spell effect as if it was a magic trap, but the DC is 25 + twice the spell's level.
19: As an attack action, you can disable magic items. You must succeed on a melee touch attack roll for attended objects. Make a Disable Device check against a DC of 15 + the item's caster level: if your check succeeds, the item must make a Will save against a DC of 10 + ½ your caster level or be turned into a normal item, and even if it saves, its magical properties are suppressed for 1d4 rounds.
Sharp-Eyed [Skill]
Nothing escapes you.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to Spot checks.
4: You can make a Spot check once a round as a free action. You don't take penalties for distractions on your Spot checks.
9: As a move action, you can make a Spot check against a DC of an opponent's Armor Class: if you succeed, you can ignore their Armor and Natural Armor bonus to AC for the next attack you make against them. If you accept a -20 penalty to your check, you can attempt this check as a swift action. Divide any distance penalties you take on Spot checks by two.
14: If you beat an opponent's Hide check with a Spot check at a -10 penalty, you can ignore concealment. If you beat their Hide check at a -30 penalty, you can ignore total concealment.
19: You can see through solid objects, but you take a -20 penalty on your Spot check for each 5'. Divide any distance penalties you take on Spot checks by five.
Slippery Contortionist [Skill]
Your childhood nickname was "Greasy the Pig,"
Benefits: You gain +3 to your Escape Artist checks.
4: While squeezing into a space at least half as wide as your normal space, you may move your normal speed and you take no penalty to your attack rolls or AC for squeezing.
9: You can squeeze through a tight space or an extremely tight space as a full-round action, but you take a -10 penalty to your Escape Artist check. Opponents grappling you don't get positive size modifiers added to their grapple bonus when you use Escape Artist to try to break their hold.
14: If you succeed on a DC 30 Escape Artist check, you can ignore magical effects that impede movement as if you were under the effects of freedom of movement for one round; this is not an action. You can also slip through a wall of force or similar barrier with a DC 40 check.
19: You can make an Escape Artist check instead of a saving throw for any effect that would keep you from taking actions. (This does not help against effects that don't allow a saving throw.)
Steady Stance [Skill]
You can fight just about anywhere. (This is a Skill feat that scales with your ranks in Balance.)
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to your Balance checks.
4: If an effect would knock you prone, if you succeed on a DC 20 Balance check, you remain standing.
9: If your opponent is balancing, you gain a +3 dodge bonus to AC against their attacks unless they succeed at beating you in an opposed Balance check.
14: All Balance DCs are halved for you.
19: You never suffer any impairment or damage from anything you're standing on, whether it's molten lava, a cloud, or even another creature. Ambient conditions, such as lighting or weather, can still impair you.
Stealthy [Skill]
If someone sees you, you have to kill them.
Benefits: You gain a +3 bonus to your Hide checks.
4: You can Hide as a free action after attacking, and snipe with melee attacks (or ranged attacks from closer than 10').
9: A constant nondetection effect protects you and your equipment, with an effective caster level equal to your ranks in Hide.
14: You can attempt to Hide even when under direct observation, but you take the usual -20 penalty to your check.
19: Even opponents who can see you have trouble locating you. If they succeed at beating your Hide check with Spot (and thus can see you), they have a 50% concealment miss chance when attacking you, which decreases by 5% for each point they beat your Hide DC.
Super Scaler [Skill]
You stick to walls like glue. Or something.
Benefits: You gain +3 to your Climb checks.
4: You have the Edge on an opponent if you're on higher ground. You don't lose your Dexterity bonus to AC while climbing, nor do you need to make a Climb check if hit while climbing.
9: You gain a climb speed equal to your base land speed, with the attendant benefits.
14: All Climb DCs are halved for you. While climbing, you can substitute a Climb check result for a Reflex saving throw, once per round.
19: While climbing, as an immediate action, you can add the result of a Climb check as a dodge bonus to your Armor Class against a single attack.
Swim Like a Fish [Skill]
You're at least as home in the water as you are on land.
Benefits: You gain +3 to your Swim checks.
4: You gain a swim speed equal to your base land speed, with the attendant benefits. You don't take armor check penalties to your Swim checks.
9: You can breathe water, and you can attack through water as if under the effects of freedom of movement.
14: While under water, you can substitute Swim checks for Reflex saves, and you gain a +4 bonus to attack and damage rolls.
19: As a swift action, you can add your ranks in Swim as a dodge bonus to your Armor Class while under water.
Track [Skill]
You feel at home no matter where you are.
Benefits: You can follow tracks using Survival, as the Track and Legendary Trackers feats.
4: You can identify the race/kind of creatures from their tracks.
9: You can move through or over difficult natural terrain without being slowed, taking nonlethal damage, or suffering other impairment. You take no penalties for moving your speed when tracking, and only -10 when moving double your speed. You can track subjects protected by pass without trace or similar spells at a -20 penalty.
14: You can track through the Astral Plane with a DC 35 Survival check. You can determine the destination of a teleport spell when standing at the point of departure with a DC 40 Survival check; if you have teleport or a similar spell, you can follow as if you had seen the destination once.
19: You're immune to natural planar effects as if you had planar tolerance always active.
(Josh says: my apologies for the lack of formatting here in this wall o' text I have a nicer looking .rtf if you want me to email it to you)
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Sat Jun 18, 2011 5:45 pm, edited 13 times in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:13 am

V. Backgrounds
All Characters Begin Play With a Background. Pick one of these (many swiped from Frank and K's Races of War) or make something similar up:
Exile
You've been kicked out of your homeland. Maybe it's because you backed the loser in an inter-clan power struggle, maybe it's because you ask inconvenient questions, or maybe it's because you actually committed the horrible crimes they accused you of. Whatever, the point is that there is a price on your head should you ever go back.
Effect: You're always on the lookout for good news from back home, Gather Info and Sense Motive are always class skills for you no matter what you do. Also you pine for your homeland a lot.
Former Claudia Miner
You've put your time in working in the mines for those damn stones. It was backbreaking labor in intense heat and freezing, leech-infested underground streams.
Effect: You benefit as though under a constant Endure Elements. Also you get a +2 circumstance bonus to any Appraise check involving claudia or anything that runs off of it. Also, you have no sympathy for people who can't take the heat.
Disgruntled Airship Hand
You've put your time in working on those flying deathtraps. The passengers never know how close they are to a deadly crash, but you picked up the tricks it takes to keep one aloft and learnt some lore from the places you visited. But here, far away from the central office, you have a chance to make a break for it and strike out on your own instead of being paid in air leagues you'll never live to redeem.
Effect: You gain a +2 bonus to Craft (Alchemy) and to Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering), Knowledge (Geography), and Knowledge (Local) checks. You may make trained-only checks with those skills even if you do not actually have skill ranks in them. However you left on bad terms, and the Royal Expeditionary Company has made it known that you're a potential saboteur, so airship captains are exceedingly unwilling to let you have passage on their vessels.
Really Big Game Hunter
You are renowned for having brought an especially impressive trophy kill back to your people. Maybe you are a lamia who led a hunt that brought a behemoth large enough to feed the village for a month, maybe you're a human who captured the T-Rex that was stuffed and now stands in the lobby of the Great Academy of Lyonesse. Whatever, the point is that people know about it and share their own anecdotes with you in hopes you'll help them with their villages critter problems. Sometimes this leads you to great adventures, more often it leads you to crops infested with mealybugs.
Effect: You may make knowledge checks to know lore about any type of monster as though you had maximum ranks in the relevant knowledge skill. (this only applies to "monster knowledge" uses of the skill and does not provide any actual ranks for purposes of feat or item abilities)
War Profiteer
The latest conflict came and that spells P-R-O-F-I-T. Hoo boy! Maybe you just came from a merchant family and you really like this sort of thing, maybe you consider yourself a visionary who can see through to a new economic theory based less on gold and more on value. Whatever, you've sold people daggers to cut themselves out of snare traps, and you're proud of it.
Effect: Appraise and Search are class skills for you no matter what you do. Also, you're a jerk. You get a personal weapon and armor (or two similar items) that are one category better than the standard whenever you enter the game. (with catgories being: Normal, Masterwork, Minor Magic Item, Medium Magic Item, Major Magic Item, Unique Artifact)
Veteran of The War
There was a great and terrible conflict that wracked the lands, and you fought on one or more sides of it.
Effect: Veterans have proficiency with 3 Martial weapons and one armor type. Veterans who belong to a class that already has martial weapon proficiency begin play with proficiency in 3 Exotic weapons appropriate to the lands upon which the battles raged. Veterans also have nightmares sometimes and talk about The War more than is perhaps strictly required.
Street Rat
You grew up on the hard end of the streets. The part where kids are total jerks and sometimes the wererats just make one of your friends disappear, and noone else seems to care. You had to lie and steal just to survive, man.
Effect: You have Bluff and Sleight of Hand as class skills no matter what you do. You don't catch normal diseases because you've already had them all. You get a +2 bonus on handle animal checks with street animals like dogs, rats, and pigeons. Also, you have a small shell that a girl gave you when you were twelve. You think she's dead, but really she's been turned into a wererat, so when eventually you meet again it'll be traumatic and you might have to kill her. Or maybe you'll be able to convince her to turn away from Team Monster and live happily ever after.
Royalty of a Fallen House
If the last hard core member of a noble house dies, there is nothing keeping people from arbitrarily taking all their lands and gold away. Such was apparently the case with your family. When you were young, the last powerful Fighter (or Wizard, or whatever) in your family was slain in the Wars of the Lame Tyrant and now the only people left in your family with more than a level or two have aristocrat levels. Needless to say, more powerful characters came and took all your stuff. Now you wander the land attempting to gain power and secure your revenge.
Effect: People believe in you for no good reason. Some ancestor of yours was awesome, and people just assume that you'll get the band back together. You get free drinks when people know who you are, and your Leadership value is increased by +2. People will also offer you assistance and otherwise try to get on your good side. Of course, your family's enemies will send ninja and assassins to finish off your line (note: this may seem like a disadvantage, but it's really not – you're a D&D character so you are going to get into fights all the time, the fact that it's ninja attempting to erase your family name is just flavor). And of course, not everyone liked the way your family did things, so sometimes people are going to spit on your horse or in your burritos.
The Resistance
Your nation got overrun by someone you didn't like. And the oppressors went way too far. You were in a cell of revolutionaries dedicated to removing the foreign devils from the lands of your people.
Effect: Those who spent time in The Resistance have a number of contacts and can easily make contacts in new areas. Essentially this means that they get a +2 bonus on Gather Information checks. Members of The Resistance can make disguises out of substandard materials and suffer no penalties while doing so. Of course, The Resistance is a downright cannibalistic organization what with all the time all of the members spend betraying people. Every even modestly successful member is certain to have a wide variety of enemies, and not just from the oppressors they are fighting! Of course, it would be folly to claim that having large numbers of enemies is much of a disadvantage for a D&D character. I'm more concerned about the fact that you can never really be sure about the loyalty of another person. Not enough to risk sleeping with them anyway.
Refugee from The War
When the big war came, not everyone was old enough or brave enough to fight in it, and your character was in one of those categories and fled to a new land. The people already living in the new land treated your people poorly and made them live in ghettos with little food and poor access to magical healing. You spent several years living as a pawn in someone else's lands and all you got was a disease. Now you're adventuring, to find a new place where you fit in and possibly get a little vengeance on all those peoples who took time out of their day to screw your people.
Effects: Refugees are exposed to a wide variety of places, dangers, diseases, and people that those who live relatively comfortable lives will never know. In essence, they can be thought of as adventurers already, though they rarely get any rewards out of the deal. A refugee begins play knowing one additional language, and this language need not be an available bonus language for her race. In addition, a refugee may consider Knowledge (Geography) and Sense Motive as class skills for the rest of their lives. A refugee character is missing teeth or has the distinctive circular scars of having survived The Pox.
Raised by Owlbears
Tarzan was raised by an ape, Mowgli was raised by a bear, Romulus was raised by a wolf, and in the D&D world your character can be raised by creatures much more exotic. The sky is really the limit here: simply pick some improbable beast and your character was protected and fed as a small child by that beast after she was orphaned or abandoned in the wilderness. While I'd like to think that we've all read enough Burroughs that this story pretty much tells itself, the truth is even more astonishing. This character background has become cliché and we're totally fine with that. You can really have an interesting and memorable character with a clichéd backstory and a three sentence intro that ends with "And then I came to this village to reclaim my birthright as a gnome."
Effect: Characters who were raised by Girallon (or whatever) are arbitrarily able to talk to magical beasts and animals as if they shared a language. Noone knows how they do it, but they do. Unfortunately, such characters didn't grow up surrounded by humanoid languages, and your only starting language is one of the trade languages no matter what your intelligence is.
Hero of the Peasants
You're the third son of a poor woodcutter or something. Maybe your father remarried and your new mother hates you. Whatever. The point is that you come from an exceedingly poor background, and your plucky spirit and do-gooder nature propels you forward to make a difference in the world.
Effect: It's not that you're too lazy to pick starting equipment it's that… OK, you're too lazy to pick out starting equipment. Believe me, I understand. A Hero of the Peasants character begins play practically naked. Leather armor or functional clothing, a sling, a quarterstaff, 10 copper pieces, and some bread. Have fun with that. But you're just generally kind of awesome. You get a +2 bonus on Survival, Handle Animal, and Sense Motive checks for no reason. And don't forget that you probably have a destiny of some sort, which means that periodically the DM will go off on a tirade about your destiny (this is worth nothing, all D&D characters have a destiny).
Experimental Stock
You, or your parents, were experimented upon by one of the many mad arcanists that dot the D&D landscape. Maybe they were members of the dreaded Mad Wizards Guild that claims responsibility for Gulguthhydras and Perytons. Maybe it was another group. You might not even know.
Effect: You have a positive, if really messed up looking trait grafted into you. You either have a natural weapon, or your natural armor bonus is increased by 1, or you have low light vision. But you also have some bad trait, like a 5' reduction in speed, or a flipper hand, or a -2 to initiative checks. Also, in polite company you might want to cover up your eyestalk. The ladies do not find it your most attractive feature.
Apprenticed
You learned from the best. Or maybe not the best. But you learned from a successful adventurer, and that's pretty good. Maybe they were your parents, maybe your parents saw fit to hire you on to a master wizard.
Effect: Hide, Spot, and Spellcraft are class skills for you. That's how people stay alive in the adventuring business, after all. You probably know some adventurers, and that means that they'll show you all the tricks like how to identify objects or scribe spells for free, how to turn artifacts into artifacts you want, and how to spend planar currency.
Student of Superstition: You know all of the old tales, and the forgotten truths behind most of them. Decipher Script is a class skill for you, and you can select a secret language from your people's history as one of your bonus languages. Of course doing things like walking around with necklaces of raw garlic and incessantly explaining that "ring around the rosies" is really a ward against the Black Death causes your people to treat you as an iconoclast.
Amnesia
Sometimes a player is really lazy or cannot think of a backstory.
Effect: None. If you're too lazy to think of a damned backstory, you get nothing at all. If the DM is feeling generous or vindictive, she can have things gradually get surreal on you like a David Lynch extravaganza. In doing so, you'll gradually find out that you actually have a backstory, and all the perks and flaws of whatever it is.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Sun Jun 19, 2011 1:35 am, edited 7 times in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:16 am

VI. Josh's Modified Tome Armors
Josh says: save for a final editing pass and ferreting out abusive entries this is done Formatting is a bit sketchy - if you want purty charts I'll mail you the .rtf file. Compared to the original Tome material I'm renaming a few armors to reflect setting materials, adding a couple and designating the metal armors as stuff that only humans can have at game start.
Armor you wear has an Armor Check Penalty, and armor you aren't proficient with has an Armor Check Penalty that is 4 points higher. Your Armor Check Penalty is applied to any Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Jump, Sleight of Hand, or Tumble checks you make. Your Swim Checks are penalized by double your Armor Check Penalty. If you cast arcane spells in armor which has an armor check penalty, your spells with somatic components have a 5% chance of failing for every point of armor check penalty.
Finally, Armor has a maximum Dexterity Bonus that you can take advantage of while wearing that armor. That is, if your armor has a max dex bonus of +4 and you have a +5 dexterity bonus, then you may only apply a +4 bonus towards your armor class while wearing that armor.
Non-Armors
AC Max Dex Check Penalty Gp. Cost
Camouflage Clothing +0 +8 -0 1
Fancy Clothes +0 +6 -1 30
Functional Clothes +0 +8 -0 1
Loincloth +0 +12 -0 1
Magic Clothes +2 +9 -0 8000
Light Armors:
AC Max Dex Check Penalty Gp. Cost
Brigandine +5 +3 -4 125
Chain Shirt +4 +5 -2 100
Cord Armor +2 +4 -1 20
Darkleaf +4 +6 -1 600
Grey Armor +3 +8 0 1,000
Leather Armor +2 +7 -1 15
Mithril Shirt +5 +6 0 1,000
Padded Armor +1 +8 0 10
Phase Spider Silk Armor +4 +6 -1 750
Still Suit +2 +5 -3 350
Studded Leather Armor +3 +6 -1 25
Wicker Armor +3 +7 -1 15
Winter Clothes +2 +4 -4 30
Medium Armors
AC Max Dex Check Penalty Gp. Cost
Adamant Breastplate +7 +3 -6 5,000
Animal Spirit Armor +4 +3 -3 750
Bone Armor +3 +4 -3 450
Breastplate +5 +4 -4 200
Chainmail +5 +3 -3 150
Chitin Carapace +5 +4 -3 500
Crystal Shell +5 +3 -5 1,000
Dragonscale Shirt +6 +5 -4 1,400
Durallium Armor +7 +4 -4 7,500
Elaborate Gown +1 +3 -5 300
Hardened Arenak Chestplate +5 +4 -1 900
Hide Armor +3 +4 -4 15
Lamellar Armor +4 +4 -4 190
Lobster Mail +5 +2 -5 350
Mithril Suit +6 +5 -2 5,000
Rhino Hide +4 +3 -3 750
Rime Hauberk +5 +3 -3 150
Ringmail +4 +4 -3 100
Scale Armor +4 +3 -5 50
Snail Mail +3 +5 -3 750
Heavy Armors
AC Max Dex Check Penalty Gp. Cost
Adamantine Carapace +11 +2 -9 9,000
Behemoth Shell +10 +3 -5 7,500
Coral Armor +5 +2 -3 1300
Demon Armor +9 +5 -10 10,000
Elukian Clay Armor +6 +3 -4 4,000
Dragonscale Suit +9 +4 -5 3,000
Full Plate +8 +1 -6 1,500
Great Armor +7 +2 -7 1,400
Half Plate +7 +2 -5 800
Hoplite Armor +6 +1 -9 500
Mechanus Armor +12 0 -8 10000
Silken Arenak Armor +7 +3 -3 4,500
Stone Plate +10 0 -9 1,750
Sun Plate +9 +6 -10 6,000
Shields
AC Max Dex Check Penalty Gp. Cost
Adamant +3 - 0 2000
Buckler +1 - -1 15
Dragonscale +3 - -2 350
Force Shield +3 - -1 1800
Mithril Shield +2 - -1 1020
Steel Shield +2 - -1 20
Vine Shield +1 - 1 45
Wooden Shield +1 - -1 15
Great Shields
AC Max Dex Check Penalty Gp. Cost
Bone Wall +3 - -10 150
Crystal Shield +3 - -3 2000
Ice Aegis +5 - -5 1600
Kappa Shell +3 - -12 500
Kite Shield +4 - -5 120
Tower Shield +4 - -10 100
Non-Armors
Anything you wear is a form of armor, but anything sufficiently light as to not count even as Light Armor can be worn by characters who lack armor proficiency without suffering penalties.
Camouflaged Clothing: Clothes specifically made to blend into the surroundings, whether by making your outline blotchy and incomprehensible, or simply matching the drapes.
Hide Ranks: Benefit
4: Opponents do not get a +4 bonus for spotting you for knowing what to look for.
8: You may hide while being observed without taking a special action.
13: You gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Hide checks.
18: You gain concealment.
Fancy Clothing: It's expensive and it looks it.
Bluff Ranks: Benefit
4: You receive a +2 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy and Bluff in civilized settings.
8: You may make a Bluff check as a free action to convince a character that you belong wherever you happen to be.
13: You may demand shelter from peasants at any time. No Bluff check required.
18: Once per turn, you may Feint as a free action.
Functional Clothing: Sensible shoes, and that sort of thing.
Sleight of Hand Ranks: Benefit
4: You receive a +2 circumstance bonus to Escape Artist and Sleight of Hand checks.
8: You may Force March for one day without being Fatigued.
13: You may retrieve stored items about your person as a free action.
18: You can carry 50% more stuff relative to your strength.
Loincloth: Sometimes, wearing the minimum required for decency is the best way to establish your badassitude.
Climb Ranks: Benefit
4 ranks: Only someone with catlike reflexes would wear this, you may always act in the surprise round.
8 ranks: Only someone with mighty thews would wear this, you may roll twice and use the better result for any Strength or Strength based skill check.
13 ranks: Only someone with animal cunning would wear this, you may roll twice and use the better result for any Bluff check
18 ranks: The way this shows off your chiseled physique says everything you ever need to say. You benefit as from Tonuges
Magic Clothing: Your pants, your shirt, and your socks exude magic. Truth be told, it's mostly your pants.
Diplomacy Ranks: Benefit
4: You gain a +1 bonus on all Charisma-related checks.
8: You gain a +2 Deflection bonus to AC.
13: You gain a +3 bonus on all Charisma-related checks.
18: You gain a +5 Deflection bonus to AC.
Light Armors
[METAL] Brigandine: A chain shirt on top of which has been layered some studded leather. It's like having chocolate and strawberry at the same time. This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB: Benefit
+1: You are encased in leather and steel and negate the first 5 points of nonlethal damage inflicted on you by any source.
+5: You gain DR 5/Piercing
+10: You can effectively disguise your armor as functional clothing. You gain a +5 bonus to Disguise checks to conceal your armor.
+15: Your Armor check Penalty is halved.
[METAL] Chain Shirt: A mass of links covering your chest, neck and shoulders made of fine steel. This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB: Benefit
+1: You are encased in steel and negate the first 5 points of nonlethal damage inflicted on you by any source.
+5: You gain DR 5/Piercing
+10: You receive a +2 bonus on any checks to resist grapple maneuvers
+15: You take only half slashing damage from any source
Cord Armor: Samurai used to wear this stuff, made of bound rope reinforced with bamboo.
Tumble ranks: Benefit
4: You are encased in cords and negate the first 5 points of bludgeoning damage you take.
8: As an immediate action, you can replace your AC for one attack by the result of a Tumble check. You may use this ability after an attack would have hit you, but before damage has been determined.
13: You gain a swim speed equal to your base land speed.
18: You may move up to your speed as a swift action.
Darkleaf Armor: This armour, grown rather than made, consists of hundreds of leaves, each as hard as iron.
Knowledge (nature) ranks: benefit
4: Your armour grows small roots into you, granting you fast healing 1.
8: You gain DR 5/piercing.
13: You gain hide in plain sight, but only in natural surroundings.
18: You and your armor are one with nature, letting you move through any natural vegetation (such as a tree trunk or brambles) as if they were level ground, as long as you end your turn in an unoccupied square. If you end your turn inside a plant, you are ejected from the nearest open space.
Gray Armor: Made with the shifting secrets of elder chaos spirits, grey armour shifts to anticipate attacks with the power of Limbo.
BAB :Benefit
+1: You are encased in shifting gray chaos and negate the first 5 points of damage from any critical hit or sneak attack.
+5: You gain DR 5/lawful.
+10: Your armour is so shifty that you negate an amount of damage from any critical hit or sneak attack equal to your BAB.
+15: You are surrounded by a 10ft radius area of Raw Limbo. You automatically succeed on unopposed control checks over this area, and gain a +4 bonus to opposed control checks. The controlled area reverts to normal once the armor leaves the affected radius.
Leather Armour: Made from cured cow, bison, crocodile, or oxhide, it's cheap, but does the job.
Tumble ranks: Benefit
4: You are encased in leather and negate the first 2 points of bludgeoning damage you take.
8: You gain fire resistance 5.
13: As an immediate action, you can replace your AC for one attack with the result of a Tumble check. You may use this ability after an attack would have hit you but before damage has been determined.
18: You may move up to your speed as a swift action.
[METAL] Mithril Shirt:Like a chain shirt, but made from a lighter alloy of steel. This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB: Benefit
+1: You are encased in mithril and negate the first 5 points of damage from any critical hit or sneak attack.
+5: Your armour moves so easily that you may may a turn of up to 90 degrees during a charge.
+10: You gain DR 5/bludgeoning and piercing.
+15: You convert an amount of lethal physical damage that you take equal to your BAB into nonlethal damage.
Padded Armour Essentially thick cloth.
Tumble ranks: Benefit
4: You may reroll a failed Tumble check when you attempt to move your full speed or through an occupied space.
8: You can gain the benefits of 8 hours of sleep with only 5 hours of sleep.
13: As an immediate action, you can replace your AC for one attack with the result of a Tumble check.
18: You may move up to your speed as a swift action.
Phase Spidersilk Armor Made of magical spiderwebs harvested from phase spiders.
Move Silently Ranks: Benefit
4: As a swift action you may send this armor to or retrieve it from the ethereal plane. While this armor is ethereal you do not gain the armor bonus nor suffer the armor check penalty, but you may not wear other armor - something about item slots prevents that. When you retrieve it, the armor appears on your person.
8: You gain a +2 bonus on climb and grapple checks.
13: You may pass through web and similar effects without impediment.
18: You may use a move action to become Ethereal for one round. When the round ends you become material again.
Still Suit: A watertight suit envelops your whole body, recycling all of your excretions and protecting you from the heat.
Survival Ranks: Benefit
4: You do not have to make checks to avoid Heat Exhaustion and Heat Stroke.
8: You have Fire Resistance 5.
13: You do not have to drink.
18: You are immune to Fire.
Studded Leather This is also made from cured cowhide, but it has small pieces of metal, hide or worked stone to cover your squishier parts.
Tumble ranks : Benefit
4: Your important bits are protected by metal or stone chunks which negate the first 3 points of damage from any critical hit or sneak attack.
8: You gain DR 5/piercing.
13: When you deal damage in a grapple, you deal additional damage equal to this armour's AC bonus.
18: You may move up to your speed as a swift action.
Wicker Armor Made from woven wood, this armour is incredibly light and makes you look like a toy with wooden wings.
Jump ranks : Benefit
4: You are encased in wood, and gain DR 2/-.
8: All your jumps are considered to have a running start.
13: You no longer take falling damage.
18: Your wooden wings give you a fly speed equal to your base land speed, at perfect manoeuvreability.
Winter Clothing: Thick furs or other clothing that keeps you warm
Survival Ranks : Benefit
4: You do not have to make checks to avoid hypothermia or frostbite while in cold areas.
8: You have Cold Resistance 5.
13: You have Cold Resistance 10.
18: You are immune to Cold.
Medium Armors
[METAL] Adamant Breastplate: A solid breastplate forged from Adamant. (or XTC, depending on your prog-rock preference). This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You gain Damage Reduction 5/Adamant
+5: You gain a +2 bonus on Bullrush checks.
+10: You do not provoke attacks of opportunity when charging.
+15: You gain 5 points of Energy Resistance to Electricity, Acid, and Sonic.
Animal Spirit Armor: Fashioned of the skin of a fierce beast, this armor still carries its spirit and will lend you its strength.
Survival Ranks : Benefit
4: You inflict +2d6 damage while charging.
8: You gain Scent.
13: You gain a natural weapon appropriate to your size. This is used as a secondary natural weapon, even if you are otherwise unarmed.
18: You may Wildshape into an appropriate mighty beast.
Bone Armor: Made from the bones of beasts or vaniquished foes, this armor is favored among necromancers.
Knowledge (Religion): Ranks Benefit
4: You gain Energy Resistance to Positive and Negative Energy equal to the Armor Bonus of the armor.
8: You are ignored by unintelligent undead as if you were undead.
13: Any undead creature you rebuke is controlled.
18: When you kill a living creature, you heal 10 hit points.
[METAL] Breastplate: A solid armour of steel protecting all vital bits, with an underlay of chainmail. This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You are encased in steel and negate the first 5 points of nonlethal damage from any physical attack.
+5: You gain DR 5/critical hits.
+10: You reduce the critical multiplier of any weapons used against you by 1 point, and reduce the bonus damage dice from sneak attacks against you by 2 dice.
+15: You gain DR 10/critical hits.
Chitin Carapace: Made from the exoskeleton of an Ankheg, it's amazingly light and makes most wearers look like oversized caricatures of Enkopjan pixies.
Climb Ranks: Benefit
4: You are ignored by Vermin until you attack them and you cannot be detected by the scent ability of creatures with the [Bug] subtype.
8: You gain a Climb Speed equal to your land speed.
13: You are immune to non-magical poison.
18: You gain a Flight Speed equal to your land speed (perfect).
Crystal Shell: The Koa-Toa grow these shimmering wearable prisms in magical wells
Use Magic Device Ranks : Benefit
4: You are encased in refractive crystal and negate the first 5 points of damage from any light attack (such as Lantern Archons, Searing Light, etc)
8: You gain a +2 to save against mind-affecting effects
13: Against any ability tagged or described as psionic, psychic, mental or telepathic, you gain SR equal to 11+your character level
18: You may automatically dispel any ongoing psionic, psychic mental or telepathic effect with a successful touch attack
Dragonscale Shirt: A tunic crafted from the scales of a dragon.
BAB : Benefit
+1: Each shirt provides Energy Resistance to a specific Energy type as appropriate to the dragon whose scales formed the shirt. The ER is equal to the Armor Bonus the shirt provides.
+5: The Armor Check Penalty of this armor does not apply to Jump checks.
+10: You gain a +4 intimidate bonus against Dragons. And a similar bonus to your saving throws against Fear from Dragons.
+15: You gain Immunity to the appropriate energy type.
[METAL] Durallium Armor: Ancient armor of a metalic alloy which shimmers and drifts like smoke, this is occasionally unearthed by kobold burrowers and is greatly coveted by those who study the arcane arts. This is a metal armor, but no one alive today knows the secrets of its manufacture.
Concentration Ranks : Benefit
4: You do not suffer any arcane spell failur chance from this armor - whether or not you are proficient in it.
8: You gain Spell Resistance equal to your ranks in Concentration
13: You are protected from harmful planar effects as though you were native to any plane you were on
18: You may planeshift to the Astral Plane or Limbo, or back from either of those to the Prime Material as a standard action.
Elaborate Gown: It's a big frilly dress, a proper tailcoat, the Imperial navy's formal dress regalia or something similar that's expensive and hard to move in.
Diplomacy Ranks Benefit
4: You gain a +2 bonus to Intimidate and Perform checks.
8: You can hide weapons of a size up to your own inside your outfit with a normal Sleight of hand check.
13: You gain a +2 bonus to Escape Artist and Sleight of Hand checks.
18: You can cast sanctuary, at will, as a sorcerer of your level.
Hardened Arenak Chestplate: The lamia have mastered the art of fashioning catalyzed Arenak epoxy into a form-fitting and protective garment that not merely allows movement, but actually supports the joints.
Jump Ranks : Benefit
4: You gain a +2 bonus to Balance, Climb, and Swim checks
8: When you fail a Balance, Climb or Swim check, you only suffer the "fail by 4 or less" consequences, no matter how low your result is.
13: You gain Climb and Swim speeds equal to your land movement
18: You may use a Jump check in place of your Reflex save.
Hide Armor: You wear some other creature as a hat.
Survival Ranks: Benefit
4: You reek in those animal pants. But you reek like another creature, making you unlocatable by Scent.
8: The DC to Track you is increased by 4.
13: You gain DR 5/Piercing
18: You do not suffer a penalty to your Disguise to emulate other creatures.
Lamellar Armor: Made from pieces of lacquered leather, iron, steel or horn held together with silk, leather thongs, or cotton thread.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You are encased in laquered wood or steel or something similar and negate the first 5 points of non-lethal damage from any physical attack.
+5: You gain DR 5/Slashing
+10: You do not take falling damage.
+15: You convert an amount of lethal physical damage that you take equal to your BAB into nonlethal damage.
Lobster Mail: A living carapace of a deep aquatic design. Lizardfolk sometimes gift this to their allies. The style is reminiscent of that of Kwalish, but much sleeker and individualized.
Swim Ranks: Benefit
4: You can breathe under water.
8: The Armor Check Penalty of this Armor is reduced to zero under water.
13: Each empty hand may be used as a Natural Weapon (Pincher). At Medium size, it does 1d6 damage.
18: You may walk on water, beginning or ending the effect as a free action (or immediate action). You can also control water as a standard action. Your ability to use control waterrefreshes when the last control water effect ends for whatever reason.
[METAL] Mithril Suit: A full body covering of light metal. Very shiny, and nearly skin tight, the mithril suit is surprisingly protective. This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
Tumble Ranks: Benefit
4: Mithril is very light, and its Armor Check Penalty is not applied against your skill checks.
8: You allow no miss chance when averting your eyes from an opponent.
13: Your Commander Rating is increases by 1.
18: When you have concealment, you have total concealment instead.
Rhino Hide: Yes, true believers, you too can be a Stan Lee character! Nuff said.
BAB : benefit
+1 when you charge, you may overrun or bull rush opponents as through you were a large quadraped
+5 when you charge, your attack is automatically a critical threat.
+10 when you charge, your movement increases by +5' per point of base attack bonus you have.
+15 when you charge, you may defer suffering the results any effects that happen during your movement until after your charge attack is resolved (AoOs, activating traps, etc)
Rime Hauberk: Formed from never-melt ice, this was a minor curiosity amongst human warmages, but has recently become a popular status symbol amongst the hobgoblins.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You gain Energy Resistance to Cold equal to the Armor Bonus of the Armor.
+5: You may produce a pall of frost as a Swift Action that inflicts 1d6 of Cold Damage per round on all creatures within 10 feet of where you were standing, and which lasts 3 rounds.
+10: You gain Immunity to Cold.
+15: Your pall of frost causes 1d6 of damage for every 2 points of Base Attack Bonus you have.
[METAL] Ringmail: Steel rings woven flat onto a leather backing. This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB Benefit
+1: You are encased in steel and negate the first 5 points of non-lethal damage from any physical attack.
+5: You gain DR 5/Piercing
+10: You gain a +2 bonus on Disarm checks.
+15: You gain a +4 AC bonus against bludgeoning ranged weapons.
Scale Armor : Scales of bronze, iron, rawhide or horn are laced against a leather backing.
Intimidate : Ranks Benefit
4: You are encased in hardened scales and negate the first 5 points of non-lethal damage from any physical attack.
8: You gain DR 5/Piercing
13: You reduce the damage from Falling and Constriction damage by 10 points.
18: You can make an Intimidate check as a Swift action.
Snail Mail: Made by harvesting the shells of the larger marine snails and stitching them together with raffia fibers and gum arabic, this nacre armor is especially effective against animal attacks.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You negate the first 5 points of damage from claw or bite attacks
+5: As an immediate action, you may negate the effects of a (Ex) ability that is triggered when a creature hits you with a claw or bite attack. Thus you may foil a crocodile's Improved Grap, a dire ape's Rend, a wolf's Trip, a weasel's Attach and similar abilities.
+10: You are immune to the poisons of animals
+15: You gain +4 AC against any attack made with a natural weapon.
Heavy Armors
[METAL] Adamantine Carapace: Made of one of the hardest and most durable known metals,
this armor completely encases you. This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB Benefit
+1: You gain Damage Reduction 5/Adamant
+5: You gain a +2 bonus on Bullrush checks.
+10: You do not provoke attacks of opportunity when charging.
+15: You gain 5 points of Energy Resistance to Electricity, Acid, and Sonic.
Behemoth Shell: Formed from the carapace of a great behemoths, this armor is coveted amongst the slaad.
Knowledge(Nature) : Benefit
4: You gain spell resistance equal to 11+your level
8: You are regarded as a mighty hunter amongst the slaad. Unless you do something hostile, slaad will be Friendly to you.
13: You may rush as the behemoth do. Once per minute you may move with a speed of speed of 150' (not reduced by this armor)
18: You gain DR 10/Epic
Coral Armor: Made of living Coral, this armor is as dangerous to your opponents as it is protective. All Coral Armor counts as having been made with Armor Spikes (a weapon three sizes smaller than the Armor).
BAB: Benefit
+1: The Armor Check Penalty of Coral Armor does not get applied against your Swimming checks. You gain a Swim Speed equal to your land speed.
+5: Enemies you damage with the Coral spikes are poisoned (DC 10 + ½ your Level + Con Bonus), initial and secondary damage of 1d3 Dex.
+10: You gain a +5 bonus to Hide checks under water.
+15: You gain DR 5/Bludgeoning
Demon Armor: Crafted from a live Demon, the Demon Armor must be constantly put in its place or it will think itself the master of the Warrior who wears it.
Intimidate Ranks: Benefit
4: All of your attacks are Evil-aligned.
8: You can see souls, allowing you to see all living and undead creatures within 120' of you, regardless of current illumination or intervening objects.
13: Every time you kill a living creature, you heal 10 hit points.
18: Outsiders with a CR more than 8 less than your level cannot approach within 30 feet of you unless you allow it.
Dragonscale Suit Scale armor forged from the scales of a dragon
BAB : Benefit
+1: Each suit provides Energy Resistance to a specific Energy type as appropriate to the dragon whose scales formed the suit. The resistance is equal to the Armor Bonus the suit provides.
+5: The Armor Check Penalty of this armor does not apply to Jump checks.
+10: You gain a +4 intimidate bonus against Dragons. And a similar bonus to your saving throws against Fear from Dragons.
+15: You gain Immunity to the appropriate energy type.
Elukian Clay Armor: Made of clay from the Elemental Plane of Water, this heavy suit takes to water like a puppy to a well.
Swim Ranks : Benefit
4: The Armor Check Penalty of Elukian Clay does not get applied against your Swimming checks. You gain a Swim Speed equal to your land speed.
8: The Armor Check Penalty of Elukian Clay is reduced to zero while you are completely submerged in water.
13: You breathe water as easily as air.
18: As a standard action, you may planeshift to the Elemental Plane of Water.
[METAL] Full Plate: Plates of steel, flexible chain armor and leather straps encase your entire body. This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You are encased in steel and negate the first 5 points of non-lethal damage from any physical attack.
+5: You gain DR 5/Critical Hits
+10: You negate the first three points of energy damage from any source.
+15: Your DR improves to DR 10/Critical Hits
[METAL] Great Armor For when pretty good armor just won't cut it. This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You are encased in steel and negate the first 5 points of non-lethal damage from any physical attack.
+5: You gain DR 5/Slashing
+10: You gain a +3 bonus on Intimidate checks.
+15: You are immune to fear.
[METAL] Half Plate: A mixture of rigid plates and flexible chain, Half Plate combines protection with flexibility. This is a metal armor, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You are encased in steel and negate the first 5 points of non-lethal damage from any physical attack.
+5: You gain DR 5/Critical Hits
+10: You gain a +2 bonus on Grapple checks.
+15: You may make an Escape Artist check as a Swift Action.
[Bronze] Hoplite Armor: Oldschool armor made of bronze and layered on in thick sheets all over the vitals. This is a metal armor, but can be forged in bronze by the Koa-Toa and some gnolls as well as by the humans.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You are encased in bronze and negate the first 5 points of nonlethal damage from any physical attack.
+5: You gain DR 5/critical hits.
+10: Your armour check penalty is halved.
+15: You gain DR 10/critical hits.
[METAL] Mechanus Armor: A powerful collection of gears and chains that offers the finest protection that the Clockwork Nirvana can devise. Sometimes, a small jet of steam or oil will be ejected for no apparent reason. This is a metal armor, but it is not made by any race on earth, it is either found or received as part of an exchange with planar travelers.
Knowledge (Engineering) Ranks : Benefit
4: You gain a +2 item bonus to Strength.
8: You are not staggered or unconscious when reduced to zero or less hit points. You still die at -10 hit points, though it is not unknown for the armor to continue fighting for some time after that.
13: You gain DR equal to the Armor Bonus of the armor, which is negated by adamantine weaponry.
18: Your size increases one level, and receive all relevant bonuses and penalties.
Silken Arenak Armor: A recent innovation among the lamia, overlapping plates of hardened arenak are held apart by layers of phase spider silk and the entire carapace slides easily without sound. While bulky, this armor is remarkably stealthy.
Move Silently Ranks Benefit
4: You gain a +2 Synergy bonus to Hide checks.
8: You negate 10 points of penalty to Move Silently for moving quickly (so running or fighting suffers only a -10 penalty, moving at normal speed is at no penalty).
13: You negate the first 10 points of Falling damage any time you fall (this does not negate damage caused by something you fall on, such as poison spikes or lava).
18: Once per round, you may attempt to hide while being observed.
Stone Plate: Carved from a single boulder, this kobold war armor is amazingly hard to move in, but the protection is amazing.
BAB :Benefit
+1: You are encased in stone and negate the first 5 points of nonlethal damage from any physical attack.
+5: You gain DR 5/adamantine.
+10: You are regarded as a great hero of the kobolds. Unless you do something hostile, Kobolds and Dryads will be Friendly towards you. You also have the [Earth] subtype.
+15: You move through earth and stone as easily as walking upon. You earthglide as an earth elemental creature.
Sun Plate: Glorious golden armor forged from the Light of Hope and filled with Radiant Goodness.
Sense Motive : Ranks Benefit
4: You radiate light like a daylight effect. Undead creatures and Evil Outsiders within this area suffer 1d6 of Light damage each round.
8: Successful Turn checks destroy enemy Undead and Outsiders.
13: You may sprout wings, granting you a Flight Speed of 90' (Good).
18: Once per day, the armor will cast a heal spell on you with a Caster level of your character level. This is a contingent effect and goes off when you need it to with no action required
Shields
[METAL] Adamantine Shield: A target shield constructed of pure Adamantine, it is nearly indestructible and can be placed between your important bits and deadly weapons. This is a metal shield, and is only produced by the humans.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You can use your shield as a point of leverage, gaining a +2 bonus on Bullrush attempts.
+5: Your shield may act as a wedge, providing a +2 bonus on Disarm attempts.
+10: You can add your Shield bonus to the DC to grapple you.
+15: You can throw your shield, performing any special combat maneuver with a range increment twice your natural reach.
Buckler: A small shield strapped to the wrist or forearm used for parrying. It provides no bonuses while you are denied your Dexterity bonus to AC.
Balance Ranks : Benefit
4: You may use a weapon with the hand using the Buckler, but doing so causes you to suffer a -1 penalty to attack rolls using this hand (including two handed weapons).
8: You gain a +2 bonus to Sleight of Hand or Bluff checks to draw a weapon or feint in combat.
13: You no longer suffer a penalty to attack rolls when using a weapon in your buckler hand.
18: Your shield bonus works against touch attacks.
Dragonscale Shield: A shield made from the scales of a dragon.
BAB : Benefit
+1: Each shield provides Energy Resistance to a specific Energy type as appropriate to the dragon whose scales formed the shield. The ER is equal to the Shield Bonus the shield provides.
+5: The Shield bonus of the shield adds to your Reflex saves against Supernatural Abilities.
+10: You gain a +4 intimidate bonus against Dragons. And a similar bonus to your saving throws against Fear from Dragons.
+15: You gain Evasion.
Force Shield: A clear shield made out of pure Force. It cannot be sundered by anything less than a completely arbitrary effect like a Sphere of Annihilation.
Spot Ranks : Benefit
4: A Force Shield's shield bonus applies against Incorporeal attacks.
8: You gain a +2 Cover bonus to Armor Class from your shield at any time that you are not denied your Dexterity bonus to AC.
13: You gain Energy Resistance against Force Damage equal to the Shield Bonus the shield provides.
18: You can claim ½ Cover from your shield at any time that you are not denied your Dexterity bonus to AC. We assume that you'll do that most of the time.
[METAL] Mithril Shield: It's strong and lightweight. This is a metal shield, and is only produced by the humans.
Sleight of Hand Ranks Benefit
4: You can use your shield as a point of leverage, gaining a +2 bonus on Bullrush attempts.
8: Your shield may act as a wedge, providing a +2 bonus on Disarm attempts.
13: You can add your Shield bonus to the DC to grapple you.
18: You can throw your shield, performing any special combat maneuver with a range increment twice your natural reach.
[METAL] Steel Shield: It can be round or square or shaped like a burrito. That's not important, the key is that it's between you and sharp objects and it's made out of steel.
BAB Benefit
+1: You can use your shield as a point of leverage, gaining a +2 bonus on Bullrush attempts.
+5: Your shield may act as a wedge, providing a +2 bonus on Disarm attempts.
+10: You can add your Shield bonus to the DC to grapple you.
+15: You can throw your shield, performing any special combat maneuver with a range increment twice your natural reach.
Vine Shield: A writhing mass of vines extends from your arm and at your direction – protects you.
Knowledge (Nature) Ranks : Benefit
4: Your shield is a tripping weapon.
8: Opponents missing you in melee provoke an attack of opportunity from you, but you may only take this attack as a Trip or Grapple attempt.
13: You gain a +2 bonus on Trip and Grapple attempts.
18: You have the Edge on any opponent you attack who has a Dexterity less than your Ranks in Knowledge (Nature).
Wooden Shield: Made of wood and held together with bands of bronze or strips of leather, a wooden shield makes up in shock absorbence what it lacks in resilience.
BAB Benefit
+1: You can use your shield as a point of leverage, gaining a +2 bonus on Bullrush attempts.
+5: Your shield may act as a wedge, providing a +2 bonus on Disarm attempts.
+10: You can add your Shield bonus to the DC to grapple you.
+15: You can throw your shield, performing any special combat maneuver with a range increment twice your natural reach.
Great Shields
Bone Wall: An assortment of bones collected into a large shield. Favored by necromancers and by those who like to keep their ancestors handy on the battlefield.
Knowledge (Religion) Ranks : Benefit
4: You gain a bonus to your Saving throws against death effects equal to the Shield Bonus of this shield.
8: You may cast Necromancy spells without somatic components.
13: You gain Positive Energy Resistance equal to the shield bonus of this shield.
18: This shield provides bonuses to your AC against Incorporeal Touch Attacks.
Crystal Shield: A shield crafted out of a single solid crystal, most commonly used by the Kuo-Toa. It's translucent but the refraction of the crystal can make things appear closer than they are.
Spot Ranks : Benefit
4: You gain a +2 bonus to any saving throw vs. a spell-like ability.
8: The DC of any spell-like ability you use while using this shield is increased by 1.
13: You may Feint once per round as a free action.
18: You gain Immunity to Gaze Attacks.
Ice Aegis: A block of never-melt ice shaped into a massive shield, this is a symbol of power and fertility amongst the goblinoids.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You gain Fire and Cold Resistance equal to the Shield bonus of this Shield.
+5: If the ambient temperature is cold, the shield bonus of this shield is increased by 1.
+10: You gain Immunity to Cold.
+15: You gain Immunity to Fire.
Kappa Shell: Fitting on the back of a character like the mythical Kappa's Shell it is named after, the Kappa Shell provides decent protection for units moving across a dangerous battlefield.
BAB: Benefit
+1: You may use both your hands while using this shield, but your attacks suffer a -2 penalty.
+5: You may catch one ranged attack per turn on your shield automatically (the attack misses, whether it was an arrow or a magical ray).
+10: You cannot be Flanked, except by a Rogue with 4 more levels than you have BAB.
+15: You do not suffer a penalty to attack rolls when using both hands.
Kite Shield: Shaped shields fit easily over a rider and his steed, allowing good protection for mounted troops.
Ride Ranks Benefit
4: Your Mount gains the same shield bonus to AC that you gain from this shield.
8: Your Mount gains Evasion.
13: You may catch one ranged attack per turn on your shield automatically (the attack misses, whether it was an arrow or a magical ray).
18: Your Mount gains Improved Evasion.
Tower Shield: Giant pieces of wood or metal, tower shields offer tremendous protection, but cannot be effectively used while mounted.
BAB : Benefit
+1: You may claim half Cover at any time, but your own attacks suffer a -2 penalty.
+5: You may catch one ranged attack per turn on your shield automatically (the attack misses, whether it was an arrow, bullet or a magical ray).
+10: You may negate one bite attack per turn from a creature that is at least 2 sizes larger than yourself.
+15: If you claim cover from your shield, you suffer no penalties to your attack rolls. So you're pretty much going to have cover all the time.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:53 am, edited 11 times in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:21 am

VII. Additional Exotic Weapons

[/td][/tr]
Weapon | Notes | Cost | Dmg (s) | Dmg (m) | Crit | Range Inc. | wt. | Type
Light Melee
Gladius | - | 30gp | 1d6 | 1d8 | 19-20/x2 | - | 4 lb | Slashing or Piercing
Warfan | d | 20gp | 1d4 | 1d6 | x3 | 20' | 2 lb | Slashing
One-handed Melee
Thinblade | - | 40gp | 1d6 | 1d8 | 18-20/x2 | - | 3 lb | Piercing
Two-handed Melee
Bayonet | r | 5gp | 1d4 | 1d6 | x2 | - | 1 lb | Piercing
Buster Blade | - | 50gp | 2d6 | 3d6 | 19-20/x2 | - | 10 lb | Slashing
Chain, Weighted | r,2,t,f,d | 15gp | 1d4/1d4 | 1d6/1d6 | x2 | - | 5 lb | Bludgeoning
Grand Maul | - | 20gp | 2d6 | 3d6 | x3 | - | 15 lb | Bludgeoning
Great Spear | r,t | 25gp | 1d10 | 2d6 | x3 | 10' | 9 lb | Piercing or Slashing
Ranged
Pistol | - | 250gp | 1d8 | 1d10 | x3 | 50' | 3 lb | Piercing
Musket | - | 500gp | 1d10 | 1d12 | x3 | 150' | 10 lb | Piercing

notes: r= reach, 2=double weapon t= can trip,f=finesseable (does that even matter in this feat set?), d=bonus to disarm
Edit: thanks to rampaging-poet for the table coding.
Bayonet: This is a knife clipped, welded or duct taped to the end of a musket. It allows a musket to function exactly like a shortspear in melee. This is a simple weapon. But If you throw an exotic weapon proficiency at it, your extra training allows you to use it as a reach weapon. Yes, this means Hobgoblins automagically get reach here.
Buster Blade: A stupendously large greatsword. The size and weight require extra training to master.
Chain, Weighted: A weighted chain can be used either as a reach weapon or as a double weapon. You can fight with a weighted chain as if fighting with two weapons (incurring the normal attack penalties as if fighting with a one handed weapon and a light weapon). In this case, you can only strike at adjacent opponents.
If you instead use the weighted chain as a reach weapon, you can strike foes 10 feet away with it. In addition, unlike most other weapons with reach, it can be used against an adjacent foe. In this case you can only use one end of the chain effectively, and you cannot use the chain as a double weapon against foes 10' away.
You can make trip attacks with the chain. If you are tripped during your own trip attempt, you can drop the chain to avoid being tripped.
When using a chain, you get a +2 bonus on opposed attack rolls made to disarm an opponent (including the roll to avoid being disarmed if such an attempt
Gladius: A longer, narrower version of the shortsword. The blade requires extra training to master.
Grand Maul: A stupendously large 2 handed warhammer, or tree with boulder tied to it. The great size and weight require extra training to master.
Great Spear: A really frickin big spear, geez, did I have to 'splain that? These stats will also represent the pike and any other large two handed polearm, such as the glaive-guisarme-voulge-septum-gazebo. Most of which require extra training just to pronounce.
Pistol: A firearm that may be fired as a light weapon. Single shot, requires a move action to reload
Musket: A firearm that requires two hands to use. Single shot, requires a move action to reload
Warfan: A weapon that looks like a simple fan, but is really made of metal or lacuered wood with razor-sharp edges. You receive a +4 circumstance bonus for any sort of check made to conceal the warfan as something other than a weapon. More importantly, during combat you may feint with a warfan as a swift action. When using a warfan you get a +2 bonus on opposed attack rolls made to disarm an opponent (including the roll to avoid being disarmed if such an attempt. A warfan may be thrown with a range increment of 10', because that totally happens in Mortal Kombat.
Thinblade: A longer version of the rapier. The more flexible blade requires extra training to master
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:24 pm, edited 6 times in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:23 am

Josh's Revised and Softened Death Threshholds
Most NPCs and Monsters die at -10. (exceptions are stuff like Undead and Constructs which are usually destroyed at 0 HP)
In an effort to encourage character continuity and allow for capture and other non-lethal defeats, PCs get a larger death threshold , and do not actually die until they reach -10 - Con Score - Level. So a level 3 PC with a 12 con, doesn't die until they drop to -25.
The Half-Assed incomplete Unclear Item Rules I'm Using Until Someone Shows me Something Better
Start with this unfinished version of the
Book of Gears

Code: Select all

    http&#58;//dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Book_of_Gears_&#40;3.5e_Sourcebook&#41;/Magic_Items

(copy-paste link)
But we're gonna tweak that a bit.
I. The Eight Item Limit
Firstly, lemme "clarify" that eight item limit. Anything at all which provides an Enhancement bonus to anything, or a Resistance bonus to saves, or a Competence bonus to skills, or a Deflection bonus to AC - anything which does any of those counts against the limit. It doesn't matter if it is a multi-charge activated wand of Shield of Faith. a constant Ring of Protection or a single-charge anyone-can-drink this potion of Protection Vs Evil - since each of those provides a Deflection bonus to AC, each of those counts as one of your the beneficiary's eight items. And in the case of charge-based stuff like wands, scrolls and potions, they count against the eight-item limit so long as the duration of the benefit lasts. Even after you've quaffed such a potion it still counts against your limit until the effect wears off or is dispelled.
Next, items of spells which provide "bullshit" bonuses do not exist anymore. I'm too lazy to rewrite the spell list so that all such spells are gone, But I'm not stupid enough to allow you to put them into items which skate around the eight-item limit. So no wands of Bless, no potions of Heroism, and no scrolls of Foresight anymore. Tough.
Finally, wands scrolls and potions of other stuff - still doesn't count against the eight item limit -golden. You can use as many as you can afford, carry and spend actions on. So not only can you carry around a wand of Cure Light and potions of negating status ailments without limiting your other options for items, but if you really do you want to layer up on buffs that don't detract from your daily spell slots, you still can. I do not care if you go nuts with Water Breathing, Freedom of Movement, Invisibility, Fly, Stoneskin, Flame Arrow, False Life, Keen Edge, and so on and so forth. Doing so is a potentially powerful use of character wealth and while does strengthen ambush tactics - none of that sort of crap pushes anybody's modifiers up to the point where the d20 roll becomes irrelevant, and none of that crap makes Josh have to recalculate enemy stats factoring in multiple different sets of sometimes stacking bonuses
2. Other stuff

- Minor Items: All constant items provide at least one bonus. Not all constant minor items provide a quality. A minor item can provide up to two bonuses and a lesser quality or up to two lesser qualities and a single bonus. Minor items are also semi-standardized, in that they are commonly traded and have GP cost ranges. Draft-type costs in spoiler tag
  Stuff buildable with the Book of Gears enhancements has costs that equal to the base cost of the non-magic item with additional costs that are an additive function of two triangular functions:
  ( 1000 X * { (X +1) / 2 } ) + ( 1000 Y * { Y ( Y+1) / 2 } )
  Where X is the number of different bonuses the item provides and Y is the number of different lesser qualities the item provides.
  So a magic sword with a +1/3 level weapon enhancement bonus to is ONE bonus, ZERO qualities and costs 1000 GP ( 1000 *1 { (1+1) /2 } )+ 0 above the base cost of the sword.
  A magic sword of spell shielding with a +1/3 level weapon enhancement bonus and also +1/3 level resistance bonus to saves is TWO bonuses, ZERO qualities and costs 3000 GP ( 1000 * 2 * { (2 +1) / 2 } ) + 0 above the base cost of the sword.
  A magic sword of spell shielding and strength boost with a +1/3 level weapon enhancement bonus and also +1/3 level resistance bonus to saves and also a +1/3 level enhancement bonus to Strength to saves is THREE bonuses, ZERO qualities and costs 6000 GP ( 1000 * 3 * { (3 +1) / 2 } ) + 0 above the base cost of the sword.
  So the more bonuses you have, the more each successive bonus costs. Every such magic item should provide at least one of the listed bonuses.
  Lesser Qualities work exactly the same, but not all items have qualities, and the costs for adding multiple bonuses rises separately from the cost for adding multiple qualities. (Moderate and Greater qualities will likely end up having additional cost modifiers when I get around to them.
  So A magic sword with a +1/3 level weapon enhancement bonus and the KEEN lesser quality is ONE BONUS, ONE QUALITY and costs 2000 GP
  ( 1000 *1 { (1+1) /2 } ) + ( 1000 *1 { (1+1) /2 } )above the base cost of the sword.
  A magic sword of spell shielding with a +1/3 level weapon enhancement bonus and also +1/3 level resistance bonus to saves that is also both KEEN and CAUSTIC is TWO bonuses, TWO qualities and costs 6000 GP ( 1000 * 2 * { (2 +1) / 2 } ) + ( 1000 * 2 * { (2 +1) / 2 } )above the base cost of the sword.
  Stuff not buildable with those guidlines uses the DMG price listing or the usual item creation feat pricing guidelines.
  Anything not buildable or listed with any of those methods will be priced on a strictly pull-it-out-of-my-ass basis.
- Better-Than Minor Items: Anything which provides more than two bonuses, or more than two lesser-qualities, or more than one moderate or any greater quality at all is rare enough that each is practically unique and there is no common trade in them. Sometimes such things are auctioned for gold and jewels, but more commonly are traded for considerations such as "an alliance between our peoples" or "as a gift in for your tribe's aid in the assault" or for "my family's free passage on your airships in perpetuity"
- Qualities. There will be more qualities, especially Moderate. As a very loose guideline reproducing spells of caster level 5-9 can be additional moderate qualities. (subject to the bad idea and bullshit bonus limitations)
- Iconic forms are out the window like a stinkbug.
- Disposing of magic items: that section is a useless stub. You can totally break magic items. Most often just by hitting them really hard; although sometimes that might result in unwanted explosions or other Gygaxian hosery.

3. Some random incoherent work-in-progress musings about class race combos and viable builds in this ruleset and setting:
Humans

- Mechanics: The flexible bonus stat and bonus feat allow human to perform well as any class. Their familiarity with firearms provides humans of any class a notable advantage in ranged combat in open settings
- Culture: being the most "civilized" race of the setting, humans account for the majority of the Knights in the setting. Being from a colder continent, humans also account for most of the snowscapers around. Totemists, Spirit Shamans and Witches are probably the rarest classes amongst the humans, but not unheard of
- Other options: humans in enkopja are often trying to escape from human civilization, so there are many human Rogues, Thief-Acrobats and Assassins who are adventuring to avoid consequences of their past actions.

Bugbears

- Mechanics: A bonus to Str and the ability to use more damaging weapons makes bugbears offensive powerhouses. Getting racial DR and a bonus to Con helps keep them in the fight. With their extra reach, make great melee warriors such as Barbarians, Knights, Samurai or Rangers (who choose melee bonus feats).
- Culture: Culturally the "savage loner" archetype of bugbears plays right into the Barbarian stereotype, however the racial requirement of snow for mating means that some bugbears become Snowscapers as a way to advertise their potency. Bugbear culture also extols wyrm-slaying, so being able to wear dragonhide armor or carry a dragonhide shield are also big deals for bugbears
- Other options: The Con bonus and DR could be used to make a bugbear White Mage as nearly indestructible healer.

Changelings

- Mechanics: the reconfigurable bonus to a physical stat mean that changelings do well as classes that can be effective both in melee and at range such as Assassin, Jester, Ranger, Rogue and Samurai The ability to change form and the bonus to bluff and disguise helps them to either infiltrate or assimilate. Don't forget that alter self explicitly includes movement modes, and all of the PC races are humanoid for rules purposes, so a changeling in can gain a dryad's climb, a kobold's burrowing or a lizarfolk's swimming.
- Culture: Having had to hide amongst the humans, Changelings tend towards sneaky classes such as Rogues, Assassins, and especially Jesters.
- Other Options: If you like the reconfigurable bonus stat, you're probably the type of player who would like the Totemist, if you pick Totemist powers that are attack or movement based instead of save based you don't even need to worry about your Cha bonus..

Dryads

- Mechanics: The bonuses to Cha and Wis make dryads a snap-tite combo race for White Mages and Spirit Shamans. The Cha bonus is also useful to Fire Mages, Snowscapers, Green Mages, Totemists and Jesters while the Wis bonus is useful to Witches and Monks
- Culture: Dryad co-operativeness and a lifestyle close to nature trees means that most dryads tend to be White Mages, Spirit Shamans, or Totemists. The cultural acceptance of individual death for the good of the whole race plays well for Samurai or Knight.
- Other options: the Climb speed lends itself to sniping and so it is not unheard of to encounter a Dryad Ranger or Assassin using a crossbow or human firearm.

Gnolls

- Mechanics: The Str and Dex bonuses make gnolls effective at both melee and range and gives them bonuses to stealth and athletic skills The ability to continue to act below 0 HP makes them somewhat more durable. They can do well as any class that uses weapons or ray spells in combat - that's most of the available classes, but here's a list anyways: Barbarian, Knight, Monk, Ranger, Samurai, Assassin, Jester, Rogue, Firemage, Green Mage, Sandmage, Snowscaper, Theif-Acrobat, Totemist.
- Culture: The concepts of honor and loyalty to clan mean that more gnoll adventurers are samurai than any other class, but the need to hunt means there are also many gnoll rangers
- Other options: The gnoll resistance to poisons and disease works thematically well for a Witch, and the bonus to Intimidate can be used to stack with the fear effects of Evil Eye.

Goblins

- Mechanics: The racial bonus to Dex stacks with the size bonus to hide and the added racial bonus to Move Silently serve to make goblins extra sneaky. Having Darkvision on top of racial bonuses to Spot, Listen and Wisdom serve to make them extra perceptive. These guys do well in scout roles such as Ranger, Rogue or Monk. The Str penalty means that they usually want to avoid melee - but with feats like Weapon Finesse and class abilities like Sneak Attack, favored enemy or an elemental damage add they can compensate. The Wisdom add can be useful to a Witch, Spirit Shaman or White mage.
- Culture: The goblins tendencies to combine stealth and opportunistic treachery to deal with larger rivals mean that goblins are most frequently Rogues or the similar classes of Assassin, Jester or Thief-Acrobat.
- Other Options: A goblin playing against the stereotype can work quite well as a Knight. Small size gives them more options for mount and the dex and size modifiers to AC make them more difficult to hit, thus meaning they are more likely to get to deal the added damage to designated opponents - which more than compensates for having to use smaller weapons and the size penalty to Strength.

Hobgoblin

- mechanics: the Dex bonus is highly useful for ranged combatants and for stealth. The 60' darkvision helps with any sort of sniper concept. Thus hobgoblins make excellent rangers and rogues, but can also be quite good as any of the elemental mages who use rays (snowscaper, fire mage, green mage, sand mage). The Con bonus is useful for characters who frontline and the proficiency with reach weapons can let some unusual character classes do so.
- culture: ranger, samurai, snowscaper. musket+bayonet
- other options: Totemist

Kobold

- mechanics: The bonuses to Dex and Int as well as the skill bonuses to Search and Disable Device and the size bonus to hiding make Kobolds a snap-tite combo race for trapfinding rogue build. However those stat bonuses are also highly useful to a sandmage, warmage, assassin or witch.
- culture: rogue, ranger, knight
- other options: burrow, scent

Kuo-Toa

- mechanics: witch, green mage, totemist
- culture: Spirit Shaman
- other options

Lamia

- mechanics: Monk, Snowscaper, Jester
- culture: Monk, Ranger, Knight, Barbarian
- other options:

Lizardfolk

- mechanics: witch, spirit shaman, white mage, monk
- culture: Spirit Shaman, Totemist
- other options: aquatic

Pixies

- mechanics: The dex add and size bonus to attacks make pixies devastatingly accurate ranged combatants, but their tiny size and Str penalty mean they cannot rely on weapon damage, they need Sneak Attack, Death Attack or a magic way to deal effective damage. The Dex and Cha adds make pixies natural fits for Green Mage, Fire Mage, or Snowscaper. The dex add and size bonuses to stealth make pixies sneaky enough to reliably use the sniping rules to re-hide after attacking even at -20 which makes pixies a good fit for rogues and assassins .
- culture: Totemist. Ranger, Green Mage
- other options: the juggernaut feat or a really high can let you ignore the AoO for entering an opponent's square, and barbarian rage dice can compensate for the Str penalty, and add to all attacks, including a pixies secondary natural sting. Of course you can pull the same trick with sneak attack and stealth and/or feinting/flanking.

Sladd

- mechanics: sand mage, war mage, assassin.
- culture: ranger
- other options

Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Mon Nov 14, 2011 8:55 pm, edited 18 times in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:24 am

PCs so far:
Allestair Quatermass: Human (scion of fallen house) Witch. He became enthralled with the ideas of Charles Mesmer regarding Animal Magnetism and Natural Tides within the body. His scorn for society is such that he was expelled from the Great Academy of Egalia. He proudly carries the letter of expulsion in which the dean (who has since advanced to headmaster) wrote "I regret that expulsion is the most severe punishment I can dispense, and I can only hope the Courts see fit to do proper justice in your case. From your conduct and character to date, I fear you are the wickedest man alive today."
Believing that there is no such thing as bad publicity, he bears this proudly, even going the length to have calling cards printed with "Allestair Quatermass: Wickedest Man Alive". When questioned about such a title, he responds that "I have that on the authority of the Head Master of the Great Academy."
Using the last of his funds he bought passage on a airship to the Enkopjean trade center on Black Coast Isle. He seeks a prospector or liaison position with The Royal Expeditions Company. Such a position would allow him to make contact with various tribes so that he may better understand the native magic traditions of Enkopja and how they make unknowing use of Animal Magnetism and Natural Tides
Mrende of The Thousand Petals Pixie Assassin (student of superstition) who has internalized The Great Hunt and believes that raising domesticated kalulu is at best a distraction from the pixies divine mission to recover all the wild kalulu and may even be betraying the most sacred bargain of her race. She brought great scandal to her people when she was offered the greatest herd in her village as dowry and she refused. Her refusal by itself would have been shocking, but what was uniquely unforgivable is that she slew the entire herd claiming that such slow-witted, glassy eyed, tamed beasts would be unfit for her larva. She could not stay in the village after that, and even now other tribes of pixies whisper that "the thousand petals are the bloody skulls of her dowry".
She believes that the nightmares speak within her dreams and they have directed her to seek out the White Maggot, King of Wickedness.
Additional Notes on Pixie race culture established during chargen:
Enkopjean pixies look rather like Orchid Mantis. Another Pic
Pixy naming conventions are <name> <descriptor> <flower word> for females and <name> <descriptor> <rabbit word> for males.
Pixy hunters use a weapon known as an Ivory Whisper (stats as tiny repeating crossbow). It uses air pressure from multiple spiracles to work as a highly efficient blowgun and can only be carved from the aged ivory found at elephant graveyards.
*******
Grylor-Ac tKor the Magnificient aka tKorey. Human thief acrobat. He ran away from a broken home and has been a ne'er do well in and out of prison for most of his young years. He most recently escaped from rowing a slave galley and disappeared into the seedy port of Stone Town. He is an opportunist who seeks fortune and glory, or at least freedom from arrest in, the new Claudia-mine boom towns of Enkopja.
Sifa Lamia Monk. Daughter of a disgraced former Moon King, she is dismayed at the changes in her people wrought by the Wicker City's trade with humans. Upset not merely at the new fashion of eating meat that has been cooked, but at the softening of her kingdom wrought by the increasing shift from hunting to herding the extremely docile animals brought by the humans, she has set out to follow the path of Mother Huntress with naught but her skills. She comes to Stone Town to attempt to learn what the humans whose decadent ways are corrupting her people are really after.
The White Hand identity taken by of Odc Ngasha, Hobgoblin veteran mercenary musketeer working for "Lord" Morgan Roth: Vice-Exchequer General of The Royal Expeditions company in order to ensure the safety of her kin from future development by the R.E.C.
Notes about goblinoid names in spoiler

> Hobgoblin
> -familiar suffix -ala
> -formal suiffix -asha
> Goblin
> -familiar -eet
> -formal -eet
> Among themselves, goblins have their own honorific suffixes, but no one cares.
> Bugbear
> -familiar -o
> -formal -un
> Goblinoid is semi-tonal. Stuff such as information about relative
> relationships between speaker and subject or immediate family standing
> or importance od recent deeds are conveyed tonally in the suffixes.
> Goblinoids sometimes choose to identify secondarily as "son/daughter
> of X" or "of the line of X". Usually this is a well-known relative or
> ancestor, or a living relative whom is being buttered up.
> "son/daughter of" is omo
> "of the line of" is ara
> The ancestor's familiar name is used in the honoriffic only when
> everyone present claims descent from them. When addressing or being
> addressed by another bloodline, the formal name is used in the
> honoriffic.
> Frex:
> Bugbear Ox (osh), son of Bugbear Olor would be "Oxo omo Oloro"
> condensed to Oxomoloro (osh OH mo lor OH) among his
> ...er...broodmates?...and "Oxun omo Olorun" (oh SHUN oh mo lo ROON)
> Titular nouns are used to denote special skill or past deed, such as
> "Hunter Ngasha" or "Clubber Oxo". We can just steal words from
> http://www.yorubadictionary.com/_vti_bi ... yoruba.htm
> to use instead of english, if you prefer.
> There are also suffixes that denote how high up the White Mountain
> one's immediate family tends toward. A combination of one's birth
> altitude and a vague aggregate of close relative's mating altitude,
> weighted toward the female side somewhat. It is useful only as a
> generalized sense of the potency of one's blood. These are all tonal,
> reflecting ascending or descending tendencies and fine-tuning of
> altitude. These details, as most tonal details, are lost on
> non-natives.
> Low -po
> Medium - bo
> High -ka

ATTACK
STR 10 0
DEX 22 6 B ATACK RACE AB MOD MAGIC FEAT TOTAL
CON 13 1 4 2 6 2 3 17
INT 14 2 DAMAGE
WILL 17 3 6 2 4 12
CHA 10 0
TOTAL AB MOD SIZE MAGIC FEAT SHIELD ITEAM BASE
25 6 2 2 5 10 AC
13 6 2 5 REF
10 3 2 5 WILL
5 1 2 2 FORT
RANK AB MOD MAGIC RACE FEAT TOTAL
DISABLE D. 9 2 11
GATHER INFO 9 0 9
HIDE 9 6 6 8 3 32
LISTEN 9 3 12
MOVE SILENT 9 6 15
SPOT 9 3 12
SEARCH 9 2 11
SLIGHT HAND 9 6 15
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:54 pm, edited 15 times in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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