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View Full Version : Just a few spell modifications of mine.



Duke Malagigi
2007-10-10, 12:09 AM
I have decided to post a collection of my current spell house rules. I want an honest appraisal with no insults.

All Conjuration (Healing) spells have been changed to Necromancy (Healing).

Cause Fear
Enchantment [Fear, Mind-Affecting]
Level: Brd 1, Clr 1, Death 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One living creature with 5 or fewer HD
Duration: 1d4 rounds or 1 round; see text
Saving Throw: Will partial
Spell Resistance: Yes
The affected creature becomes frightened. If the subject succeeds on a Will save, it is shaken for 1 round. Creatures with 6 or more Hit Dice are immune to this effect.

Cause fear counters and dispels remove fear.


Deathwatch
Necromancy
Level: Clr 1, Pal 1, Drd 1, Rng 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 30 ft.
Area: Cone-shaped emanation
Duration: 10 min./level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

By the power of your faith or arcane methods, you can determine the condition of creatures near death within the spell’s range. You instantly know whether each creature within the area is dead, fragile (negative hit points, but still alive), fighting off death (alive with 25% or less hit points), severely wounded (alive with 26%-50% hit points), moderatly wounded (alive with 51%-75% hit points), lightly wounded (alive with 76%-99% percent hit points), unharmed (alive with 100% hit points), undead or neither alive nor dead (such as a construct).

Deathwatch sees through any spell or ability that allows creatures to feign death.


Not much to it people. I just removed the [Evil] descriptor, opened it up to more classes and slightly modified the flavor text. When do you think WotC will follow suit? Any questions people?

Dominate Person
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting] [Evil]
Level: Brd 4, Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 round
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One humanoid
Duration: One day/level
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
By torturous and mind shattering magic you can warp and bend the will of one humanoid creature to your desires.

If you and the subject have a common language, you can generally force the subject to perform as you desire, within the limits of its abilities. If no common language exists, you can communicate only basic commands, such as “Come here,” “Go there,” “Fight,” and “Stand still.” You know what the subject is experiencing, but you do not receive direct sensory input from it, nor can it communicate with you telepathically.

Once you have given a dominated creature a command, it continues to attempt to carry out that command to the exclusion of all other activities except those necessary for day-to-day survival (such as sleeping, eating, and so forth). Because of this limited range of activity, a Sense Motive check against DC 15 (rather than DC 25) can determine that the subject’s behavior is being influenced by an enchantment effect (see the Sense Motive skill description).

Changing your instructions or giving a dominated creature a new command is the equivalent of redirecting a spell, so it is a move action.

By concentrating fully on the spell (a standard action), you can receive full sensory input as interpreted by the mind of the subject, though it still can’t communicate with you. You can’t actually see through the subject’s eyes, so it’s not as good as being there yourself, but you still get a good idea of what’s going on.

Subjects resist this control, and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out. Once control is established, the range at which it can be exercised is unlimited, as long as you and the subject are on the same plane. You need not see the subject to control it.

If you don’t spend at least 1 round concentrating on the spell each day, the subject receives a new saving throw to throw off the domination.

Protection from evil or a similar spell can prevent you from exercising control or using the telepathic link while the subject is so warded, but such an effect neither prevents the establishment of domination nor dispels it.

If the spell's victim is released from the effects of a dominate person, all actions they have committed in this state are vividly remembered and often times cause nightmares and flashbacks. Optional: The victim also suffers 1d6 points of sanity damage from the mental trauma of being enslaved with this spell.

Dominate Monster
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting] [Evil]
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Target: One creature
This spell functions like dominate person, except that the spell is not restricted by creature type.

Scare
Enchantment [Fear, Mind-Affecting]
Level: Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Targets: One living creature per three levels, no two of which can be more than 30 ft. apart
Duration: 1 round/level or 1 round; see text for cause fear
Saving Throw: Will partial
Spell Resistance: Yes
This spell functions like cause fear, except that it causes all targeted creatures of less than 6 HD to become frightened.

SleepingOrange
2007-10-10, 12:56 AM
The conjuration/necromancy swap is a great idea, and one I use myself.

Deathwatch's shift, too, is a good one.

Duke Malagigi
2007-10-10, 02:04 AM
The conjuration/necromancy swap is a great idea, and one I use myself.

Deathwatch's shift, too, is a good one.

Okay, how about the flavor changes to dominate person and dominate monster?

SleepingOrange
2007-10-10, 02:33 AM
T'be honest, I don't know those particular spells well enough to venture an opinion; I tend to avoid enchantment, illusion, and divination in favor of necromancy, abjuration, and evocation.

...

And now I do; cause fear I can see going either way; in absence of a strong opinion one way or another, I would go with the rules as written. Plus, as I said, I prefer necromancy to enchantment.

I'd oppose the flavor changes as written for the dominate spells because it seems like establishing such a thrall over an evil creature wouldn't be evil; I would write it so that there were three different versions of the spell learnable(maybe even five): a good subtype one, which would give evil creatures targeted by it a -2 or -4 penalty to their will saves, but good creatures a +2 or +4 bonus(or make them entirely untargetable), an evil subtype one that would be like the good one in reverse, and a neutral one like the one in the RAW.

Flavor-wise, the good spell would suffuse the subject's mind with a gentle calm and quiet peace, leaving them amenable to suggestion; the evil spell would wrench control of the subject's mind away from them with foul and twisted mental torture; the neutral spell would just quietly steal away their will, almost gently.

Scare: see cause fear.

Duke Malagigi
2007-10-10, 02:54 AM
Well, I think of spells such as the dominate line as Evil because of what they do. The purpose of dominate person and dominate monster is to rob other senitent creatures of their free will and make them a almost mindless slaves. Even if you only use this spell against Evilly aligned characters its still wrong in my opinion.

SleepingOrange
2007-10-10, 11:49 AM
And that's certainly your prerogative; the reason the alignment system works is because there's room for objectivity and flexibility. As it stands, I'd be uncomfortable with you taking such a powerful spell out of my aresenal, but you're not my DM, so... Besides, I tend to play neutral characters anyway, and could thus make sparing use even of an evil-aligned dominate spell.

Duke Malagigi
2007-10-10, 04:00 PM
And that's certainly your prerogative; the reason the alignment system works is because there's room for objectivity and flexibility. As it stands, I'd be uncomfortable with you taking such a powerful spell out of my aresenal, but you're not my DM, so... Besides, I tend to play neutral characters anyway, and could thus make sparing use even of an evil-aligned dominate spell.

Well, that's just how I see the dominate line of spells. Your views are valid in your campaigns and mine are valid in my campaign.