Homebrew: Seeker Evocations

I wrote up some seeker evocations with a desert theme in mind for those that read this blog and actually use third-party/homebrew material. It is a hard class to write for because the concept seems kind of un-refined; you throw axes or shoot arrows, and spirits pop out to beat shit up. That much is made clear in Player’s Handbook 3, though some of their powers let them knock critters into the feywild, grow quills, and ignore difficult terrain because the “land recognizes you and your allies as friends”. It really makes it difficult to put some boundaries on what sort of things a seeker should be doing, as well as how to explain it.

Heroes of Nature and Lore

Despite a fairly sparse offering of only four themes, this is a nice article. For heathens who do not play Dark Sun, themes are a way to provide mechanical support for your character’s background. To take a quote from the article, a theme can readily answer what you were immediately before you started adventuring. More so than simply taking a rank or two in a Craft or Profession, themes could be used to provide a way for your history to meaningfully affect your character. Mind you, none of them involve bookbinding, basketweaving, or farming, but you never know what future articles or third-party support will bring.

Alchemist

This theme grants you the Alchemist feat (including a complete description of what the feat does), one free formula, and lets you create an item after each short rest for free. The only recipe featured is alchemist’s fire, but then if you’re reading the article then you should have access to the Compendium anyway. The level 5 and 10 features let you learn more recipes for free, as well as granting you an attack bonus with alchemy items that you made.

All of the powers are utilities which can grant an ally a bonus to damage objects, create a zone of smoke while legging it, and creating a zone of difficult terrain that burns creatures knocked prone in it.

I like this because it lets you make an arcanist that also knows alchemy without having to spend a feat on it. The free recipes and free items will also likely encourage their use at the table. 

Animal Master

This nifty theme gives you an animal minion that you can boss around. You get to choose from a cat, dog, hawk, monkey, raven, or a close-enough approximation to your liking. Regardless of which you choose, they act more like familiars than animal companions, having no attacks, a unique trait, and some skills to help you out. You do start with distracting attack, which requires your minion to be within 5 squares and lets you gain combat advantage against a target within 5 squares.

As the name implies these guys are minions, and while most monsters will “normally” ignore them they can be killed, and you don’t have Raise Beast Companion or the ability to reform them out of arcane runoff. If they did, they stay dead, and it takes either a month or an adventure wrap-up to get it back, except at level 5 when you can get a new one every extended rest at the DM’s discretion. 

The theme powers let you command your animal to do various tricks that it wouldn’t otherwise do, grant you a defense bonus and let you ignore flanking, and eventually share senses with it. 

The other two themes are the order adept and wizard’s apprentice. I won’t got into detail here, as I’ve already spoiled half the article. Suffice to say, this is some pretty cool stuff and I look forward to cooking up my own and seeing what other people come up with. Yeah, it adds some more power creep, but not a whole lot (certainly not enough to make me reconsider how I balance my XP budgets).

Edit: Apparently there’s a list of all the themes that will come out this month.

• Chevalier
• Explorer
• Guardian
• Guttersnipe
• Hospitaler
• Mercenary
• Noble
• Ordained priest
• Outlaw
• Seer
• Scholar

Dragon: The Aberrant Souls

I’d recently had to shelve an aberrant-heavy campaign due to one of the players quitting, complete with the potential for characters to become corrupted and mutated by exposure to energies from Xoriant. So when I read articles like this it feels like fate is mocking me, because it is both a good article–amidst a dearth of subpar releases–and ideal for my unfortunately expired campaign. It’s mostly about taking primal characters and adding a dash of Lovecraft, with the first four pages going over how your character might first come into contact with the Far Realm, how society handles it, an organization called the Morphic Web, and how the corruption manifests itself.

The how/why section isn’t very long, providing only four generic examples, while society’s reactions are divided into two extremes, summed up as they either like you or hate you. The last paragraph assumes that regardless as to whether you’re loved or hated, you’ll probably just become an adventure and gain a series of increasingly powerful abilities that’ll let you save the world anyway. The Morphic Web was interesting, a group of aberrant souls that try and keep in communication, watching each other to see who is about to crack, but I found the sample dialogue to be weak. If nothing else, it will provide a character with plenty of potential adventure hooks and NPCs. There’s no cost to join, so its something you’ll need to ask your DM about.

There’s a background associated with a bit of Morphic Web story: someone went crazy 20ish years ago and massacred most of his tribe in the process of giving free hand-me-outs. It gives bonuses to Dungeoneering and Insight, or you can pick up Deep Speech. As an added option it also pitches you several personal quest ideas (which I heartily approve of)

The last bit on Far Realm corruption asks how it manifests itself, which has a sidebar on the same page that suggests 10 different mutations you can roll of choose from, such as tentacles for hair, eyestalks, or mouths in your hands, with the option of rolling a new one each level that replaces the existing one…or adds to the mess. The corruption is more than skin-deep, however, and the article provides a few examples for role-playing mental degradation due to visions and dreams from your aberrant totem. These provide another method for the DM to feed you information, with a sidebar recommending you to not overdo it.

The mostly-flavor part of the article wraps up with a new 13th-level Divination ritual that lets you pick an aberrant creature when you master it, and spend healing surges to make Dungeoneering checks to ask it questions. You can spend more healing surges to contact a different creature if the one you talked to doesn’t know the answers you want. The good thing is that members of the Morphic Web can master this ritual without having Ritual Caster.

Last but not least, paragon paths. There are four, with two tied to class features, and the other two specific classes. Most are primal, but one also allows monks and rangers. You can multiclass or hybrid to meet the prereqs, so there’s some flexibility.

Formless predator requires wild shape, and is associated with the chaos beast. 

• 11th-level grants you a damage bonus after using wild shape for the first time in battle, can choose to take on the form of an aberrant beast instead of a natural one, can end an effect and shift when you burn an action point. You also get undulating pseudopod, which lets you shift and make an attack that deals some hefty damage with a daze kicker.
• 12th-level lets you end a polymorph or petrification effect and gain some temporary hit points, all without spending an action.
• 16th-level lets you apply the Beast Form keyword to any one of your 1st-level attacks.
• Finally, at 20th-level you can make a melee attack that deals a lot of damage, blinds the target, and deals ongoing damage that scales up with each failed save.

Herald of madness is for barbarians, monks, and rangers, and is associated with the gibbering mouther.

• 11th-level causes creatures to take psychic damage whenever they attack your Will, force creatures you hit with action points to attack another creature of your choice, and allow allies to reroll failed saves by taking some psychic damage.
• The 11th-level attack deals weapon-based damage, and also causes the target and adjacent enemies to provoke opportunity attacks from you even when shifting or teleporting.
• At 12th-level you gain a stance that causes enemies to deal half damage between you and any other enemy adjacent to them.
• The 20th-level attack, babbling rage, deals a shitload of weapon-damage and causes all adjacent enemies to grantt combat advantage to you.

The ocular adept was from 3rd Edition, though I can’t recall from which book. Unfortunately, its for hunters and seekers instead of wizards (if I recall correctly). I’d be tempted to playing a multiclassed character just to get it. As the name implies, its associated with the beholder.

• 11th-level lets you transform your weapon into a “spiriteye”, which is basically the same thing as whatever weapon you’re using, except it doesn’t require any ammo or actions to load it (if any). You can burn action points when using it in order to make an extra attack that targets another creature, but it has to be a ranged basic attack.
• Also, the 11th-level encounter attack requires the spiriteye, which deals weapon-damage, has a variable kicker, and lets you fly 6 squares by using a move action.
• 12th-level causes you to grow a couple eyestalks, allowing you to fly for a turn and prevent combat advantage from flanking.
• 16th-level lets you use your spiriteye without even using your hands, and when you make ranged basic attacks you don’t draw opportunity attacks.
• 20th-level is a Stance power that lets you make one ranged basic attack as a minor action and you can shift if the attack hits.

Last but not least is the phrenic master, which requires call spirit companion and is associated with the mind flayer.

• 11th-level is really nice: any enemy that kills your spirit companion is dazed for a turn, and attacks you make using an action point take both a -2 penalty on any saves and grant combat advantage for a turn.
• The 11th-level attack power is like a poor man’s mind blast, dealing paltry damage with a daze kicker. It also has a slide effect, and your spirit companion can use it if you want.
• Speaking of your spirit companion, the 12th-level utility lets you force your spirit companion to take a hit for you.
• The 16th-level class feature is sweet: your spirit companion can use any of your ranged or area-effect attacks, and if its not next to any enemies you don’t take opportunity attacks.
• The 20th-level daily lets you dominated a target (or daze on a miss), and if the target is next to your companion when you turn starts, you can slide both the target and your companion 4 squares until they shake off the domination/daze effect.

I really enjoyed this article. It would have been great quite awhile back during my primal campaign, and if I revive it I’m going to make sure my players are aware of this article. I’m not sure what the intended audience for it, however, since its not for purely primal characters, nor is it for psychic characters. If you want to play a primal character that becomes corrupted by the Far Realm, then it will be a nice fit. Mostly, I think it’s best for a DM who is trying to pitch a particular kind of story (Far Realm invasion).