So I have a player who made a.. Fairly interesting character.. We're all new to D&D so he's still learning how to roleplay. So he's been trying to make his character the coolest thing ever. TL:DR At the bottom.
He made a ridiculously long backstory involving both his parents being killed by a dragon. His character is a dragonborn, so at one point he was supposed to be literally reborn from the blood of that dragon as a new person. I knew he would go overboard, so I had to nicely tell him that I'm not gonna change the rules of my world to allow for that kind of reincarnation powers.
Anyway, after his parents were turned to ash by a dragon, he was taken in by a fairly evil mid-level warlock (who are kinda common in my world) and trained to use magic. So he starts off as a level 1 sorcerer who escaped his evil master, and hates the innate magic he has. He dislikes both his sorcery spells, and his dragon heritage. In fact, he doesn't know how to use his breath attack yet. Though there are 2 other dragonborn in the party, so he will learn from them. (though he won't add his proficiency bonus till 1-2 levels later I think)
And that's not even touching on the dragonslaying sword passed down from his father, that reminds him of his morality and keeps him on the nicer side of the chaotic good spectrum.
Basically he wanted to make an evil character, but more of an anti hero. But also unstable, because it's edgy and cool.
So he had this sword be the thing that reminds him to be morally good, and if he ever loses it (which the player basically plans on) he'll slowly start doing worse and worse things for the greater good, going more and more chaotic and slowly losing sight of the end goal as he spirals into a sympathetic villain character. (which is fine cause it fits the world pretty well, and the rest of the party is mostly neutral as a result of the harsh campaign setting.. I'm just worried about him using it as a reason to be a jerk to the other players for his own fun.. But that's my own problem.)
Anyways. I gave the sword the ability to crit on a 19 or 20 against anything with draconic lineage, and crit on an 18-19-20 against a full dragon. I don't know if that's too much power, but I figure it will give him an incentive to not try to lose it and go evil.
Anyways. I feel like it could be a fun character, but I want to give him an incentive to play the character, and get more into the roleplaying aspect of the game. I've had to remind him a few times that his character doesn't know how to use his fire breath. (Funny too, cause he came up with that restriction.) So to give him a reason to play his character, and cause I think it would be pretty cool, I want to give his character an ability to store magic power over time.
Basically, I want to give him some sort of point system that increases for every day he goes without using his magic. Possibly allowing him to cast a spell from two or three levels higher every two or three days, to make up for him hardly using his spells.
I'm not sure if that would be too powerful of not. Does anyone have an idea? Has it been done before?
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"Roasting marshmallows over the flames of my burning sanity~"
It's an interesting mechanic, but rather than making it only positive (storing power) you could add a complicating factor. Perhaps it could be implemented by after a day of not casting at all, spells cast with a level 1 slot come out as a level 2 spell. The next day his level 2 slots cast spells as 3rd level, and so on. But then the complication could be something like it takes concentration to keep the power inside himself. If he has not cast for a day (and thus has the power stored up) then he is concentrating. If he takes damage, or is otherwise forced to, he must roll to maintain that concentration. If he loses concentration then one of his 1st level spells goes off, chosen at random, targeting a random valid target. Or something. If the character resents this unwanted power, then make the power something deserving of resentment.
I obviously have no idea how that would balance, but it might be fun.
It's an interesting mechanic, but rather than making it only positive (storing power) you could add a complicating factor. Perhaps it could be implemented by after a day of not casting at all, spells cast with a level 1 slot come out as a level 2 spell. The next day his level 2 slots cast spells as 3rd level, and so on. But then the complication could be something like it takes concentration to keep the power inside himself. If he has not cast for a day (and thus has the power stored up) then he is concentrating. If he takes damage, or is otherwise forced to, he must roll to maintain that concentration. If he loses concentration then one of his 1st level spells goes off, chosen at random, targeting a random valid target. Or something. If the character resents this unwanted power, then make the power something deserving of resentment.
I obviously have no idea how that would balance, but it might be fun.
Yes actually. The idea was for him to only gain extra power after a full day of not using any. So basically carrying over some of the power that he should have been using, so that it's not fully wasted potential.
Also, I kinda like the idea to make it something dangerous, but I'm not too keen on punishing a player with backfiring spells all the time just cause I gave him a cool ability.. Maybe something simpler, that might work into the mechanic for overcharging his spells?
My biggest concern, is how much would be too much?.. I doubt he's going to advance past a 1st level caster, but what level of spell slot should be the highest?
One more point. My original idea involved giving him extra sorcery points to mix and match at whatever level of spell slot he wanted. So If he waited three days, he could cast three 2nd level spells from three first level spell slots? Maaybe only two.. that seems a bit much.. Or maybe the third point takes an extra day to get, being the capstone power level.
So I have a player who made a.. Fairly interesting character.. We're all new to D&D so he's still learning how to roleplay. So he's been trying to make his character the coolest thing ever.
TL:DR At the bottom.
He made a ridiculously long backstory involving both his parents being killed by a dragon. His character is a dragonborn, so at one point he was supposed to be literally reborn from the blood of that dragon as a new person. I knew he would go overboard, so I had to nicely tell him that I'm not gonna change the rules of my world to allow for that kind of reincarnation powers.
Anyway, after his parents were turned to ash by a dragon, he was taken in by a fairly evil mid-level warlock (who are kinda common in my world) and trained to use magic. So he starts off as a level 1 sorcerer who escaped his evil master, and hates the innate magic he has. He dislikes both his sorcery spells, and his dragon heritage. In fact, he doesn't know how to use his breath attack yet. Though there are 2 other dragonborn in the party, so he will learn from them. (though he won't add his proficiency bonus till 1-2 levels later I think)
And that's not even touching on the dragonslaying sword passed down from his father, that reminds him of his morality and keeps him on the nicer side of the chaotic good spectrum.
Basically he wanted to make an evil character, but more of an anti hero. But also unstable, because it's edgy and cool.
So he had this sword be the thing that reminds him to be morally good, and if he ever loses it (which the player basically plans on) he'll slowly start doing worse and worse things for the greater good, going more and more chaotic and slowly losing sight of the end goal as he spirals into a sympathetic villain character. (which is fine cause it fits the world pretty well, and the rest of the party is mostly neutral as a result of the harsh campaign setting.. I'm just worried about him using it as a reason to be a jerk to the other players for his own fun.. But that's my own problem.)
Anyways. I gave the sword the ability to crit on a 19 or 20 against anything with draconic lineage, and crit on an 18-19-20 against a full dragon.
I don't know if that's too much power, but I figure it will give him an incentive to not try to lose it and go evil.
Anyways. I feel like it could be a fun character, but I want to give him an incentive to play the character, and get more into the roleplaying aspect of the game.
I've had to remind him a few times that his character doesn't know how to use his fire breath. (Funny too, cause he came up with that restriction.)
So to give him a reason to play his character, and cause I think it would be pretty cool, I want to give his character an ability to store magic power over time.
Basically, I want to give him some sort of point system that increases for every day he goes without using his magic. Possibly allowing him to cast a spell from two or three levels higher every two or three days, to make up for him hardly using his spells.
I'm not sure if that would be too powerful of not. Does anyone have an idea? Has it been done before?
"Roasting marshmallows over the flames of my burning sanity~"
It's an interesting mechanic, but rather than making it only positive (storing power) you could add a complicating factor. Perhaps it could be implemented by after a day of not casting at all, spells cast with a level 1 slot come out as a level 2 spell. The next day his level 2 slots cast spells as 3rd level, and so on. But then the complication could be something like it takes concentration to keep the power inside himself. If he has not cast for a day (and thus has the power stored up) then he is concentrating. If he takes damage, or is otherwise forced to, he must roll to maintain that concentration. If he loses concentration then one of his 1st level spells goes off, chosen at random, targeting a random valid target. Or something. If the character resents this unwanted power, then make the power something deserving of resentment.
I obviously have no idea how that would balance, but it might be fun.
"Roasting marshmallows over the flames of my burning sanity~"