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.
If the caster of the cursed mark is the main antagonist then there should be no benefits to the mark. As soon as there are some benefits to the mark, you'll have some players want to keep their mark and start siding with the antagonist, then you'll have to rewrite the story so the antagonist is no longer the antagonist but rather an ally.
The tadpoles in BG3 provide some benefits because the Emperor ends up being an ally at the end, not the main antagonist, and the player gets the choice to side with the Emperor and become a Mindflayer. So only have the mark provide beneficial abilities if you want to encourage the players to maybe side with the one who gave them the mark.
Similarly, if you want the caster of the mark to be the main antagonist for the whole campaign they have to have minimal to no negative effects, otherwise the PCs will drop all exploration and side quests and be urgent & single-minded in seeking out a cure to the marks. So the marks can only start having significant draw backs in the very final act of the campaign.
That said, the cursed marks should have some kind of drawback (or a potential drawback that NPCs will tell the PCs about) if you want the PCs to oppose the caster who put it on them. If they don't do anything at all the PCs will probably just try to talk to the caster/disciple to ask "what's with the marks bro?"
If the marks are linked to demon dimension ritual, then you should foreshadow that. Perhaps the marks start causing nightmares, and those nightmares start featuring demons, then maybe start featuring a chained / imprisoned demon lord slowly getting freed. Eventually the PCs may realize they can understand demon speak because of the marks, and maybe later they gain some cosmetic alterations turning them into demons - e.g. skin starts to grey, or their eyes change colour, or they start growing fur.
I see where you coming from but if the players want to join the villain, they’re allowed to. I don’t think they will though, based on the player’s personalities and how they’ve been playing so far (one’s a wildcard though).
The idea is that the players experience both a power-up and a penalty for using the mark: if it’s only a power-up they have no reason to get rid of it, and if it’s only a penalty you’re right in saying they’d rush to get rid of it. One of the themes I’m exploring is that short term gratification leads to long-term negative consequences.
I’m not worried about the lore of it all. I’m mostly looking for feedback regarding how fun it’d be for players to play around (both in using the power and roleplaying the consequence) and how much balanced this specific power-up is. Thanks for all the help so far though!
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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.
If the caster of the cursed mark is the main antagonist then there should be no benefits to the mark. As soon as there are some benefits to the mark, you'll have some players want to keep their mark and start siding with the antagonist, then you'll have to rewrite the story so the antagonist is no longer the antagonist but rather an ally.
The tadpoles in BG3 provide some benefits because the Emperor ends up being an ally at the end, not the main antagonist, and the player gets the choice to side with the Emperor and become a Mindflayer. So only have the mark provide beneficial abilities if you want to encourage the players to maybe side with the one who gave them the mark.
Similarly, if you want the caster of the mark to be the main antagonist for the whole campaign they have to have minimal to no negative effects, otherwise the PCs will drop all exploration and side quests and be urgent & single-minded in seeking out a cure to the marks. So the marks can only start having significant draw backs in the very final act of the campaign.
That said, the cursed marks should have some kind of drawback (or a potential drawback that NPCs will tell the PCs about) if you want the PCs to oppose the caster who put it on them. If they don't do anything at all the PCs will probably just try to talk to the caster/disciple to ask "what's with the marks bro?"
If the marks are linked to demon dimension ritual, then you should foreshadow that. Perhaps the marks start causing nightmares, and those nightmares start featuring demons, then maybe start featuring a chained / imprisoned demon lord slowly getting freed. Eventually the PCs may realize they can understand demon speak because of the marks, and maybe later they gain some cosmetic alterations turning them into demons - e.g. skin starts to grey, or their eyes change colour, or they start growing fur.
I see where you coming from but if the players want to join the villain, they’re allowed to. I don’t think they will though, based on the player’s personalities and how they’ve been playing so far (one’s a wildcard though).
The idea is that the players experience both a power-up and a penalty for using the mark: if it’s only a power-up they have no reason to get rid of it, and if it’s only a penalty you’re right in saying they’d rush to get rid of it. One of the themes I’m exploring is that short term gratification leads to long-term negative consequences.
I’m not worried about the lore of it all. I’m mostly looking for feedback regarding how fun it’d be for players to play around (both in using the power and roleplaying the consequence) and how much balanced this specific power-up is. Thanks for all the help so far though!