Disinterred Eldricity: Blood Abilities Revisions, Plus Deities and Domains

Revisions to Blood Abilites

The abilities have been cooking for a few days, and after some chats with colleagues, I feel some revisions are in order. Some abilities are not as attractive as others, and the mechanics of a few could serve to be beefed up.

Iron Will

This power was pretty dull on its own. Detect Illusion has something of the same problem, but Harbinger pointed out that it does have the potential to save your bacon if you are targeted by nasty stuff like Phantasmal Killer. Iron Will is still kind of boring since it uses the same mechanic type (advantage on saving throws) and I think we can do better.

Harbinger recommended allowing in a version of the monk's ability to spend an action to end enchantments and charms, which I liked. So the revised version looks something like this:

Iron Will (Minor)
You may spend your action to end an enchantment or charm effect upon you. You may use this a number of times equal to your Bloodline modifier (minimum 1), and your uses recharge after a long rest.

Not quite so boring as the advantage mechanic that I started to grow too fond of, and still has a use limitation. Iron Will becomes a pretty great blood ability, but it's not a mechanic I'd want to go overboard with, or copy over to things like Detect Illusion due to the oddity of resolving problems like the aforementioned Phantasmal Killer; do I just spend a use to say "nah" to someone's illusory attack? Feels kind of annoying to adjudicate, and at least Iron Will eats an action.

Touch of Decay

This was my bad, and Harbinger properly called out the fact that it ended up being kind of weaksauce for a Great power. It should scale as you increase in level, like a cantrip would, and do something a bit nastier on top of that.

Touch of Decay (Great)
You may take an action to make a single attack using your Bloodline score as the attack ability to deal 1d8 points of damage. This damage replaces that of any unarmed strike you would normally perform. The damage increases by 1d8 damage when you reach 5th level (2d8), 11th level (3d8), and 17th level (4d8).

Damage inflicted against inanimate objects (including constructs and unattended objects such as walls) doubles the damage dice.

Unfortunately, sometimes this power manifests spontaneously. Each day you must make a Bloodline saving throw against DC 5. If this saving throw fails, you destroy a random non-magical object in your possession. 

Now that's freakin' scary. A high-level scion of Azrai can put their hand on a stone wall and crumble it to dust. Siege engines and castles can be taken apart, literally, with the scion's bare hands. Sounds right up Azrai's alley.

Cases were also made for the reintroduction of Detect Lie and Persuasion, but I need to do some more thinking. Additionally, it was suggested that certain powerful abilities, such as Elemental Control and Travel, could have minimum level requirements before you can even take the power. The number of blood abilities that would have this is, overall, pretty low, and I do gate the actual summoning powers of Elemental Control to a bit later, so I don't yet think this is necessary.

It's also damned unlikely that a player will have a 20 Bloodline in order to qualify for either of them at 1st level, unless you're doing point-buy or rolls and they play a variant human that also takes the Power of the Blood feat. If you put in that much bullheadedness into being a Great bloodline strength starting out, more power to you.

Deities of Cerilia

The work I intended to put in this section is actually already done. The good ol' PDF I reference frequently took a pretty accurate stab at this, and I feel there's no point changing it just for the sake of changing it.

If you're lazy or don't otherwise want to reference the PDF for whatever reason, these are the pertinent gods for player character clerics:

• Avani, Goddess of the Sun (LN): Knowledge, Life, Light
• Belinik, God of Terror (CE): Nature, War
• Cuiraecen, God of Battle (CG): Life, Tempest, War
• Eloele, Goddess of Night and Trickery (CN): Life, Trickery
• Erik, God of the Forests (N): Life, Nature (though most are just druids)
• Haelyn, God of Law and Nobility (LG): Life, Light, War
• Kriesha, Goddess of Winter (LE): Life, Tempest
• Laerme, Goddess of Beauty (CG): Life, Light
• Moradin, God of the Dwarves (LG): Knowledge, Life, War
• Nesirie, Goddess of the Seas (NG): Life, Nature
• Ruornil, God of the Moon (N): Knowledge, Life
• Sera, Goddess of Fortune and Wealth (CN): Life, Trickery

Obviously there's the smattering of humanoid and monster deities, but those generally aren't going to be worshiped by players.

Next time, I'll begin conversion and update of the domain management rules. It will be split into multiple entries, beginning with a minor rehash of what all the numbers and slashes mean, and what classes benefit most from what holding types.