Common Bloodline [PEACH]

[Ruethgar]

Common Bloodline

Most bloodlines are from legendary heritage, this is not one such bloodline. The common rabble have traits of their own that they pass down to their children, though hardly comparable to being able to breath fire like a dragon or enthrall people like a nymph, the humble origins of some heroes do grant their own kind of strength.



Level

Minor

Intermediate

Major


1


Profession(Any One) +2


2

Profession(Any One) +2
Noncombatant


3


Wisdom +1


4
Profession(Any One) +2
Noncombatant
Hearth and Home


5


Commoner Affinity +2


6

Wisdom +1
PackratDM 354


7


Knowledge(Local) +2


8
Noncombatant
Hearth and Home
Endurance


9


Dexterity +1


10

Commoner Affinity +2
Granny's Secret


11


Commoner Affinity +4


12
Wisdom +1
PackratDM 354
Miracle Business Practice


13


Craft(Any One) +2


14

Knowledge(Local) +2
Old Ties


15


Constitution +1


16
Hearth and Home
Endurance
Hardened Immune System


17


Commoner Affinity +6


18

Dexterity +1
Versatile Background


19


Gather Information +2


20
Commoner Affinity +2
Granny's Secret
Mob



Hearth and Home: Whether through inheritance from dying family members, serfs building your castle for you, or the price of your favors adding up, you gain greater tracts of land or grander homes as time goes on. You gain 200 gold credit per level that can be used in Stronghold building only, though generally less of a stronghold and more of a small house, shop or farm.

Noncombatant: You may have trained in melee combat, you may even be a member of the guard, but you never really had to fight for your life at home and have to overcome the uncertainty and fear to attain a combat prowess rivaling the heroes in stories. You take -2 on all melee attacks. You also gain a bonus feat for having this flaw.

Endurance: You are no stranger to long days and hard work. You gain the Endurance feat as a bonus feat and may apply the +4 bonus to Profession and Craft skills when using them to work for a wage.

Packrat: You gain the feat Packrat even if you do not meet the prerequisites. You can carry 10g/lvl of undefined items which you can define at any time. You must spend 8hr replenishing this gear and you must specify the weight when you do so and the items defined cannot exceed that weight capacity. Normally this would be done via shopping, spending the requisite gold, however you may also choose to barter, rolling a Profession, Perform, or Craft skill to make at least some of the gold needed as a day's work instead of dipping into your current reserves. Sometimes peasants carry around the most random things, seriously who just has fine art and gems on their person?

Granny's Secret: You can duplicate the cleaning, heating, cooling, and flavoring effects of Prestidigitation and Farmhand at will as an extraordinary ability. At GM discretion, other uses of these spells are possible but should not be overtly magical.

Miracle Business PracticeDMG II: You never lose money running a business.

Old Ties: Your ties spread far and wide and you can always seem to find kin or family friends willing to get you a better price for your wares. You can sell items at 75% value rather than the normal 50%. Oh! Your second cousin thrice removed Uncle Bob! We'll get you the best price in town for kin.

Hardened Immune System: Your hometown didn't always have access to the best medicine and magic and so many of the people there have a natural resilience against common ailments. You get +4 resistance bonus vs non-magical poisons and diseases.

Versatile Background: You gain a bonus feat. This feat may be a background feat, which you can take as if you were level one, but you must still qualify for any other prerequisites.

Mob: You can call on your family, friends, servants and community to come together for a common goal. 1/week You can transform into an angry mob. You gain the Mob template for 1hr.

[Ruethgar]

I know this is mostly a joke piece, but I was wondering how balanced the playground thinks it is vs. the normal bloodlines as well as against Welknairs (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=10951428&postcount=115).

[Deepbluediver]

I think you said "feast" instead of "feat" when describing the Packrat ability. Though a feast of rats might be amusing.

What exactly does the "Mob" ability do? What benefits are there to forming a mob?


I realize that this is meant partially as a joke, but honestly I would probably just make this class features of the Commoner NPC class and not bother with the complexity of a bloodline.

[Ruethgar]

No more feast of packrats, mob ability altered for clarity.

I wanted this to be more for any NPC to take rather than just Commoners. Besides, the Commoner flaws already make them a potentially very powerful class, no need to outshine the Warrior, Expert, and Aristocrat even further.

[Amechra]

Do you get bonus feats for those Flaws?

[Ruethgar]

I had already put in a line after each of their descriptions to clarify that, yes you do get a bonus feat for each of the three flaws: Unimportant NPC, Noncombatant, and XP Farm.

[Deepbluediver]

Commoner flaws already make them a potentially very powerful class, no need to outshine the Warrior, Expert, and Aristocrat even further.
Ok, let me ask the other homebrew question then- why should someone NOT take this bloodline? What do they give up in exchange for all it has to offer?

[Ruethgar]

The bit at the top requiring an NPC class level to gain the benefits. So a Fighter 15/Peasant Bloodline 3 would gain nothing but a Warrior 15/Peasant Bloodline 3 would get up to the level 15 benefits. A Commoner 3/Peasant Bloodline 3/Sorcerer 10 would get up to the level 3 benefits. I will alter it for clarity though.

Edit: Of course Magwrites and Adepts just became a great deal better, but you still can't PrC out and they are hardly up to T1 and T2 power.

[Deepbluediver]

I still fail to see how this is a better way of doing things than just making them Commoner class abilities. How often do people really need to buff up the NPC classes anyway? Or use them? If given any influence in the choice, most players avoid NPC classes like the plague.

Is the point of this just to give a DM options to have people stand around in the background not doing much in a way besides DM fiat?

[Ruethgar]

I tend to optimize a bit much in character generation and had decided to make a line of NPC classed characters to see if I could still break them. The current published bloodlines, and the better homebrews, pretty much all have some epic heritage that would not be thematically appropriate to the characters I wanted to create, but I still wanted the option of a bloodline. So I created this one after a few minutes thought and wanted to see how well it matched up against other's in the playground's opinion.

Edit: Point being that there was very little thought put into whom else would use it and for what ends.

[Deepbluediver]

I tend to optimize a bit much in character generation and had decided to make a line of NPC classed characters to see if I could still break them. The current published bloodlines, and the better homebrews, pretty much all have some epic heritage that would not be thematically appropriate to the characters I wanted to create, but I still wanted the option of a bloodline. So I created this one after a few minutes thought and wanted to see how well it matched up against other's in the playground's opinion.

Ok, fair enough I guess. It still seems a little odd and out of place to me, especially since you can have different strengths of it, but if the flavor works for what you want, go for it, I guess.

Have you ever read the Discworld series? This makes me think of Rincewind, who's a "wizard", and isn't a failure per se, it's just that his only talent is surviving, and at everything else he's utterly hopeless. He's not what you'd call a background character, but he seems to exist for the sole purpose of other things to happen around, and occasionally act as a catalyst for someone else's world-changing adventure.

[Ruethgar]

I haven't read any of the works for the Discworld, though I have seen a couple movies based there that were quite amusing. Rincewind seems somewhat like a character concept I would want this bloodline to complement. The additional strengths were more for formatting issues. I never use anything below a Major Bloodline but I copy pasted the bloodline table and it was less trouble to fill in Minor and Intermediate than it was to remove them.

I'm thinking of removing the Unimportant NPC, Background Noise, and Improved Evasion to add in more mercantile works. Something like selling items for 75% instead of 50%, a minor version of the Landlord feat for a house and shop, and maybe a little more skill at crafting or profession, a flat bonus seems boring but maybe a % increase in productivity.

[Deepbluediver]

I'm thinking of removing the Unimportant NPC, Background Noise, and Improved Evasion to add in more mercantile works. Something like selling items for 75% instead of 50%, a minor version of the Landlord feat for a house and shop, and maybe a little more skill at crafting or profession, a flat bonus seems boring but maybe a % increase in productivity.

See, I know it doesn't seem to be what you're really looking for, but that's exactly the kind of stuff I would attach to the Commoner NPC class. So you can make fully fleshed out NPCs, if you want, without having to explain how a bloodline fits in with everything. There's nothing against the rules to make a multiclass Commoner 5/Warrior 3, for example, and have his backstory be that he served in the local militia in his youth and now owns a brewery.

I like the ideas that you have, I just don't understand why they need to be a bloodline, which by definition is normally a special/epic/fantastic source of unusual powers.


Edit: In fact, the more I think about it, if I really wanted to use this in a game I'd probably tweak it so it could be used with PC classes for anyone who wants to play up their roots and humble beginnings. So we can be more like Bilbo and less Thorin or Gandalf.

[Ruethgar]

Altered it to be a bit less of a joke and more along the lines of humble beginnings. Any thoughts?

[Ruethgar]

One bump for the review of adjustments before I call it good enough.

[roko10]

Noncombatant at 4th level really does not make any sense; it would be very odd if, say, your Fighter with a Common bloodline learned how to fight better in levels 1-3, only to partially forget how to fight at level 4. Perhaps flip the Profession(any) and the flaw around?

[Ruethgar]

I want to keep the Bloodline outline, so I switched the Hearth and Home and Noncombatant instead. I agree that its a little off, but this way it is only one level not three. Easily fluffed as beginners luck, ignorance of the horrors of the world, or youth's vigor.