Hey everybody, I’m relatively new to homebrew so I’m looking for critique on a concept. Please consider both fun and combat balance, thanks!
Idea: A powerful entity has cast a mysterious spell in an ancient, forgotten chaos magic. It wants to observe the players and influence them towards acts of chaos. On a game mechanic level, my aim was to tie the players together and give them a story thread to follow, which is linked to the main plot.
The first time the mark activates is when a player reaches 0 hit points, after which the player can activate the mark at-will (Bonus Action).
Effects: Half of Max HP as Temporary Hit Points, Advantage on (Magic) Attack Rolls but all attacks made against the user are made with Advantage, the user may only use actions and bonus action that cause damage. This effect lasts for 1 minute. After each use the player suffers a short term Madness effect until the next long rest and after every 10 uses the player suffers a long term Madness effect and moves into the next phase. In phase 1 the caster knows the location of the user, in phase 2 it can manipulate their dreams, in phase 3 it can project thoughts into the user’s mind in the user’s own voice and in phase 5 it can (try to?) control the user’s actions and decisions.
Thoughts: Maybe it should be full Max HP as Temp HP? The aim is to give the player a short term combat power boost for long term negative effects. I think the effect should make the user fight to deal and receive high damage. I was thinking an additional effect could be that the user must attack the creature closest to it.
Sorry, I'm confused. Why is the Advantage on attacks only for magic attacks?
As for the Madness as the penalty, most of the Short Term Madness effects completely cripples the character so I don't know why anyone would use this ability?
Short Term Madness has a 6/10 chance of making the character completely unplayable - stunned, incapacitated, fleeing in fear, forced to attack the nearest creature they can see (including their allies), paralyzed, or incapable of casting spells.
Similarly Long Term Madness has a 10% chance of making the character completely unplayable - either mute or unconscious, plus 25% chance of disadvantage on a significant portion of things they can do.
Maybe it was poorly worded: I meant all attacks, including magical attacks (basically Reckless Attack but not just for melee).
And good point about the Madness, I could make my own Madness table. I mean to have it be mostly roleplay effects: I read a couple online which made it sound fun, I didn’t know exactly how crippling it was so thanks for your advice.
Maybe someone has an idea better than Madness effects as roleplay prompts for a penalty to use the mark?
For instance Eberron has Dragonmarks with very minor mechanical effects but with a lot of lore associated with them, so NPCs will notice & respond to the fact that the PCs have the marks. But the PCs themselves don't have anything forcing them to care about the marks, they could choose to just hide the marks and go do whatever.
In contrast BG3 videogame has the tadpoles with little actual effect, but huge potential effect which then gives the PC a reason to explore the world to try to find a cure for it, and end up being a large part of the narrative with whole factions being pro- or anti- tadpole.
Or is this going to be more of "chosen one" type mark that personally connects the PCs with the BBEG - e.g. Harry Potter - so that the PCs are the only ones able to defeat the BBEG?
Or is this just an introductory thing, akin to a "prison escape" type opening story arc where the PCs are manipulated by the marks to come together and do some deed that puts them on the wrong side of the law or some authority that forces them to stick together for survival and then kind of fades into the background.
Or is this going to be the entity talking to the party via the marks going to be the main quest-giver?
It’s like a cross between BG3’s tadpole and the cursed seal in Naruto. The players have received their marks and are looking for the caster and the caster’s apparent disciple (which was an allied NPC in the first dungeon). For now the party is going about their business, solving quests while keeping their eyes and ears open for clues regarding the caster and disciple.
The caster of the cursed mark is, for now, the main antagonist. It’s trying to cause conflict by providing power to several opposing factions, which it needs for a ritual to re-open a gateway to a demon dimension and return the world to a pre-civilization state.
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Hey everybody, I’m relatively new to homebrew so I’m looking for critique on a concept. Please consider both fun and combat balance, thanks!
Idea: A powerful entity has cast a mysterious spell in an ancient, forgotten chaos magic. It wants to observe the players and influence them towards acts of chaos. On a game mechanic level, my aim was to tie the players together and give them a story thread to follow, which is linked to the main plot.
The first time the mark activates is when a player reaches 0 hit points, after which the player can activate the mark at-will (Bonus Action).
Effects: Half of Max HP as Temporary Hit Points, Advantage on (Magic) Attack Rolls but all attacks made against the user are made with Advantage, the user may only use actions and bonus action that cause damage. This effect lasts for 1 minute. After each use the player suffers a short term Madness effect until the next long rest and after every 10 uses the player suffers a long term Madness effect and moves into the next phase. In phase 1 the caster knows the location of the user, in phase 2 it can manipulate their dreams, in phase 3 it can project thoughts into the user’s mind in the user’s own voice and in phase 5 it can (try to?) control the user’s actions and decisions.
Thoughts: Maybe it should be full Max HP as Temp HP? The aim is to give the player a short term combat power boost for long term negative effects. I think the effect should make the user fight to deal and receive high damage. I was thinking an additional effect could be that the user must attack the creature closest to it.
Please advice, thanks!
Sorry, I'm confused. Why is the Advantage on attacks only for magic attacks?
As for the Madness as the penalty, most of the Short Term Madness effects completely cripples the character so I don't know why anyone would use this ability?
Short Term Madness has a 6/10 chance of making the character completely unplayable - stunned, incapacitated, fleeing in fear, forced to attack the nearest creature they can see (including their allies), paralyzed, or incapable of casting spells.
Similarly Long Term Madness has a 10% chance of making the character completely unplayable - either mute or unconscious, plus 25% chance of disadvantage on a significant portion of things they can do.
Maybe it was poorly worded: I meant all attacks, including magical attacks (basically Reckless Attack but not just for melee).
And good point about the Madness, I could make my own Madness table. I mean to have it be mostly roleplay effects: I read a couple online which made it sound fun, I didn’t know exactly how crippling it was so thanks for your advice.
Maybe someone has an idea better than Madness effects as roleplay prompts for a penalty to use the mark?
How do you want to tie it into the narrative?
For instance Eberron has Dragonmarks with very minor mechanical effects but with a lot of lore associated with them, so NPCs will notice & respond to the fact that the PCs have the marks. But the PCs themselves don't have anything forcing them to care about the marks, they could choose to just hide the marks and go do whatever.
In contrast BG3 videogame has the tadpoles with little actual effect, but huge potential effect which then gives the PC a reason to explore the world to try to find a cure for it, and end up being a large part of the narrative with whole factions being pro- or anti- tadpole.
Or is this going to be more of "chosen one" type mark that personally connects the PCs with the BBEG - e.g. Harry Potter - so that the PCs are the only ones able to defeat the BBEG?
Or is this just an introductory thing, akin to a "prison escape" type opening story arc where the PCs are manipulated by the marks to come together and do some deed that puts them on the wrong side of the law or some authority that forces them to stick together for survival and then kind of fades into the background.
Or is this going to be the entity talking to the party via the marks going to be the main quest-giver?
It’s like a cross between BG3’s tadpole and the cursed seal in Naruto. The players have received their marks and are looking for the caster and the caster’s apparent disciple (which was an allied NPC in the first dungeon). For now the party is going about their business, solving quests while keeping their eyes and ears open for clues regarding the caster and disciple.
The caster of the cursed mark is, for now, the main antagonist. It’s trying to cause conflict by providing power to several opposing factions, which it needs for a ritual to re-open a gateway to a demon dimension and return the world to a pre-civilization state.