Author Topic: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats  (Read 2847 times)

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VennDygrem

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[3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« on: September 27, 2011, 10:23:07 PM »
While attempting to outfit a character with feats, I found myself wanting to make sure it had darkvision. The easiest way to do that, that I could find, was through the Abyssal Heritor feats in Fiendish Codex I, specifically "Eyes of the Abyss." However, I didn't think it was appropriate for my character to have demonic ancestry, especially since I am using a much more ghostly-themed concept.

The entry for Abyssal Heritor feats states that besides Abyssal heritor feats, "other heritor feats corresponding to planes other than the Abyss might certainly exist." Well, the Ethereal plane is certainly another plane, and who wouldn't like a bit of a ghost's abilities without having to be fully undead and take levels in the Ghost savage progression? I, for one, like having a body!

Spectral Heritor Feats:
[spoiler]
Quote
The boundary between this life and the next is tenuous at best, and is crossed by residents of both sides regularly. Mortals pass away every day, and every corner of the planet has its stories about the restless spirits of the dead. Some people claim to be mediums, capable of speaking with the deceased, and in rare cases being possessed by them. Some people are merely unlucky enough to tread too close to the haunted grounds of a tormented spectre, and some adventurers' quests bring them directly to the Ethereal Plane. In some cases, direct interaction with spirits leaves an indelible mark upon a being's soul, and can change them fundamentally. In other cases, people come to within an inch of becoming one of these spirits themselves, or simply have some ability to mimic the abilities of a ghost. Whatever the reason, possessors of Spectral heritor feats become more like the incorporeal beings that they share a connection with.

Being a Spectral heritor does not make a character evil, nor does it make them undead; however, their connection with the undead means they are detected as both alive and undead by powers such as Deathwatch, Lifesense, or Detect Undead (In the case of the Detect Undead spell, the strength of the character's aura treats their effective hit dice as equal to the number of Spectral heritor feats they possess). Characters of any alignment can select Spectral heritor feats, as ghosts can be of any alignment; however, evil characters tend to spend more time in the presence of undead, and are thus more likely to possess Spectral heritor feats.

Most Spectral heritor feats increase in power as the character gains more of them, leaving behind their mortal life for a more phantasmal one. However, selecting Spectral heritor feats is not without its drawbacks. The act of moving closer to the grave leaves a mark on the possessor's soul, which manifests noticeably when dealing with the matters of mortals. Each feat will list a penalty (usually to some skill or set of skills) specific to the feat, some of which growing more dire even as their benefit grows stronger.
[/spoiler]

Ethereal Skin [Spectral Heritor]
Your body resonates slightly more with the Ethereal Realm than the Material.
Benefit: Your Deflection bonus to AC improves by 1. This improvement increases by 1 for every two Spectral heritor feats you possess. If you do not have a deflection bonus to AC, assume your deflection bonus is +0.
Special: Your body is in continual flux between corporeality and incorporeality, which can alter your effective weight somewhat, making it more difficult to balance. You take a -2 penalty on Balance checks.

Unsubstatial Sustenance [Spectral Heritor]
Your body becomes less reliant on physical requirements to survive, as it draws material from the Ethereal Plane to sustain itself.
Prerequisite: Any one other Spectral Heritor feat
Benefit: For every 2 Spectral heritor feats you possess, you may select one form of sustenance (Breathing, Eating/drinking, or Sleeping) that you no longer require in order to survive.
Special: Though not everyone will immediately notice that you aren't breathing, something about you just seems wrong. You take a -2 penalty to Disguise checks per foregone form of sustenance. You may decide to not select more actions to forego at every 2 feats if you so desire, but you may not reverse this decision once it is made.

Eyes of the Grave [Spectral Heritor]
The veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is lifted just a little bit.
Prerequisite: Any one other Spectral Heritor feat.
Benefit: You gain darkvision out to a range of 10 feet, plus 10 feet for each Spectral Heritor feat you possess (including this one).
Special: Gaining this ability makes your eyes glow slightly, which is disconcerting and distracting to those with whom you interact. This effect manifests as a -2 penalty on Diplomacy checks.

Unyielding Mind [Spectral Heritor]
The whispers in your mind keep your resolve steady and harder to manipulate, as you become more single-minded in your desires and goals.
Prerequisite: Cha 15
Benefit: You gain a +2 to saves versus mind-affecting effects, plus 1 for every Spectral Heritor feats you possess (including this one). If you possess four Spectral Heritor feats, you become immune to one type of mind-affecting effect (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, or morale effects). If you possess six Spectral Heritor feats, you may choose to become immune to any or all mind-affecting effects.
Special: The whispers you hear may strengthen your resolve, but they can be distracting when you try to focus on the task at hand. You take a -2 penalty on concentration checks, increasing the penalty by one for every further Spectral Heritor feat you possess.

Frightful Moan [Spectral Heritor]
You have learned to emit a blood-chilling moan that can stop even the bravest in their tracks.
Prerequisite: Cha 15, Any two other Spectral Heritor feats
Benefit: You can emit a frightful moan as a standard action once per day per two Spectral Heritor feats you possess. All living creatures within a 30-foot spread must succeed on a Will save or become panicked for 1d4 rounds. This is a Supernatural, sonic, mind-affecting fear effect. A creature that successfully saves against this cannot be affected by the character's frightful moan for 24 hours.
Special: Emitting the moan requires a constant build up of sonic energy on your part throughout the day, which dulls your sense of hearing as it resonates in your body. This causes you to take a -2 penalty on Listen checks.

Ghostly Grasp [Spectral Heritor]
By reaching out with your willpower, you can manipulate objects beyond your normal reach.
Prerequisite: Cha 15
Benefit: You may use Mage Hand as a supernatural ability twice per day per Spectral Heritor feat you possess. If you have four or more Spectral Heritor feats, treat this as Greater Mage Hand. Your effective caster level equals the number of Spectral Heritor feats you possess.
Special: Since you start relying more on your willpower to manipulate objects, you lose some of the dexterity in your hands. This manifests as a -2 penalty to either Disable Device, Open Lock, or Sleight of Hand checks; you must choose one of these skills to take the penalty on upon gaining this feat, and once this decision is made, it cannot be undone.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2011, 12:55:59 PM by VennDygrem »

VennDygrem

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #1 on: September 27, 2011, 10:26:32 PM »
[spoiler]Changelog:
9/28: Altered 'Unyielding Mind' to reduce the save bonus slightly.
9/28: Changed 'Self-Sufficient Survival' to 'Unsubstantial Sustenance' to reflect more of the ethereal/ghostly flavor.[/spoiler]

These feats provide a way of getting some of the benefits of being a ghost without having to fully commit to being one. They also reward taking several of them rather than just a couple, though taking just a couple can still be rewarding. Gaining more powerful abilities and effects is possible by leaping head-first into the feat group, though in keeping with the concepts behind Abyssal heritor feats, I decided to worsen the penalties associated with the more powerful feats as you get higher-level abilities.

Any thoughts? Comments/Critiques/Suggestions?

I'm also opening this up for other people to submit their own Spectral Heritor feats, so write 'em up and I'll add them to the list!
« Last Edit: September 28, 2011, 12:56:11 PM by VennDygrem »

ThisGuy01

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2011, 10:59:49 PM »
I really like these feats.  I played a hellbred with a boatload of the abyssal feats and always wished there were more kinds.  What about some feat like this;

Ectoplasmic Essence
Prerequisites: (whatever you want)

Your very being becomes faint, becoming more like that of a spirit.  For every Spectral Heritor feat you posses, you have a 5% chance to ignore any attack from a magical weapon, or a 10% chance to ignore any attack from a non-magical weapon.  The miss chance is ignored with a ghost touch weapon, and the chance maxes out for 50% for magical and 80% for non-magical weapons.

This ability it not without it's downsides however, and these miss chances also effect you.  You have a 5% miss chance per 2 Spectral Heritor feat you posess (max 30%).  Wielding a ghost touch weapon lowers the maximum miss chance you have by 10% (down to 20%).


This would obviously be one of the stronger feats in the series, but I think it could be really fun.  Kind of like a more awesome ring of blinking.

VennDygrem

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2011, 11:24:32 PM »
Hmm, a good idea, but it's a bit complicated and the penalty is a bit harsh, since the character is already spending a feat slot to get this. I'd suggest changing it to something like the following:

Ectoplasmic Essence [Spectral Heritor]
Your very being becomes faint, becoming more like that of a spirit.
Prerequisite: Cha 13, Ethereal skin
Benefit: As an immediate action, you may negate one nonmagical weapon attack against you once per day per Spectral Heritor feat you possess. You may spend two uses to gain a 50% miss chance versus a magical attack. This is a supernatural ability.
Special: Random spots on your body become partially, though temporarily, transparent when you lie. This results in a -2 penalty on bluff checks.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2011, 05:05:53 AM by VennDygrem »

Garryl

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #4 on: September 28, 2011, 12:58:15 AM »
The description of Spectral Heritor feats says you count as both living and undead for some spells. However, despite giving a trio of examples, it doesn't actually include any description of what kinds of spells. Are you affected by Control Undead and Undeath to Death? Can your corpse be animated by Animate Dead? How about Cure spells, which would damage you if you are undead but heal you if you are living? (Note that Inflict spells would still damage you if you can't heal from negative energy.) Further, if you weren't alive to begin with, are you now also considered living for spells?
Never mind, it specifically says detected.

Self-Sufficient Survival stops after telling you to choose something, but before telling you that you don't need to do it any more. Since there are only 3 options, you have to have 2 feats beforehand, and the feat is a Spectral Heritor feat itself, you get the 2nd option automatically and the 3rd one after only one more feat. Also, breathing and sleeping seem somewhat more advantageous to do without than eating (especially if you still need to drink).
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VennDygrem

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2011, 01:18:31 AM »
That feat actually started as just giving me a way to not have to breathe, but then I was looking at undead traits and decided maybe I should have an option to not have to eat or sleep as well. Drink I'm assuming will work the same as creature types (ie: not having to eat takes care of this), since I doubt Undead or Constructs need to drink water to survive. If I remove the word 'more' from the benefit line, you only gain one benefit to start, and immediately gain a second if you grab another spectral heritor feat. Then you'd need two more to get the third one. I didn't want it to be too powerful for just one feat, but I'm still unsure of how to limit it. Maybe just one spectral heritor feat as a pre-req, gain one sustenance bypass, then one more for every two more feats.

In re-writing the feat, I accidentally deleted the part that said "you don't need to perform this action to survive anymore." I'll re-add it.

Would it be less confusing if I just removed the part that says you detect as undead? I was trying to add something similar to the Abyssal Heritor feats wherein taking more than one makes you irrevocably Chaotic in alignment. It's basically just another form of fluff, and a DM could easily just ignore it.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2011, 01:28:42 AM by VennDygrem »

Sinfire Titan

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2011, 03:41:26 PM »
Unsubstatial should be Insubstantial. Also, please clarify if Unyielding Mind grants blanket immunity or if it allows you to be selective (the closest feat to it, a Willing Deformity, is blanket-immunity).


[spoiler][/spoiler]

VennDygrem

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2011, 09:25:41 PM »
Should have made it more obvious, but I mentioned that you can become immune to any and/or all mind-affecting effects. What I meant was you get to select any from the list beyond the one you select at 4their feats, and can choose to not select some of them. So while you might be completely immune to charms and compulsions, you could choose to not be immune to moralistic effects. However, that still leaves you susceptible to fear and the like. Maybe I could add immunity to fear as a benefit to having 5 SH feats, but I'm not sure it's necessary. I'll open that up to advice.advices

--edit--
Also, I actually had it as Insubstantial before, but some digging showed that Unsubstantial is a direct synonym and thus both are appropriate. However, I felt that Insubstantial made is sound like you weren't getting enough sustenance, while unsubstantial sounded more like it was "lacking material form" as from the definition.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2011, 01:04:47 AM by VennDygrem »

VennDygrem

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #8 on: September 29, 2011, 03:39:06 PM »
Some of these feats could work for other types of undead, so I'm thinking of opening the concept up (though it breaks the planar flavor) and will probably start adding feat chains for Bone Legion (skeleton), Night Child (vampire), and others, and if popular enough I'll probably expand to other creature/planar types. I just can't stop at one. :D
« Last Edit: September 30, 2011, 02:43:00 AM by VennDygrem »

ThisGuy01

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #9 on: September 29, 2011, 10:11:57 PM »
If you start branching to other undead, I suggest incorporating the use of the tomb tainted feats.  Mostly because they've already created a pretty solid basis for a psuedo-undead.  Libris Mortis just in case you didn't know

VennDygrem

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2011, 08:37:46 PM »
That's certainly something I'll keep in mind, though off the top of my mind, I only know about Tomb Tainted Soul changing your healing from positive to negative energy. I might incorporate some of it, but mostly I'd like this to stay self-contained, and not too reliant on referencing too many books. I'll look into it, though.

ThisGuy01

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Re: [3.5] Spectral Heritor Feats
« Reply #11 on: October 01, 2011, 02:03:07 AM »
I just wanted to put the idea out there, they cover crit resistance, bonus on mind effecting and poisons and the like, and one for not needing to sleep.  they give a good base for undead so i thought i would bring them to your attention.