Comments from the Finger: Something, something, something, madgods. Something, something, something, Lovecraft. The Update is here.
Some people don't seek out the maddness of the Far Realms, they're grandfathered in. Like the denizens of Lovecraft's own Innsmouth, some people carry evidence of the universe's unknowable secrets inside their very genes. It's inescapable. Whatever mad deformities warp their bodies also warp the weave of magic, and sometimes warp their minds.
Aberrant Bloodline
You are descendant from a foul creature, and its blood wreaks havoc in your family tree. Those in your House are rarely and seemingly at random born hideous, and with terrifying powers, and as such, generation after generation has committed infanticide on the abominations. You are one such monster, cursed at birth yet spared the knife by your mother, free to live out your miserable span of existence a freak divorced from society. Yet your power grows, as fearsome as your aspect and as dreadful as your glare.
Aberration Blood
Beginning when you select this origin at 1st level, your skin is thicker, scalier, or furrier than normal. When you aren’t wearing armor, your armor class equals 13 + your Dexterity modifier.
Finally, you gain darkvision, the ability to see in dim light within 30 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. If you already have darkvision, your range increases by 30 feet.
Hideous Appearance
At 1st level, your appearance is hideous to behold. You may add double your proficiency bonus to Intimidation checks, but you have disadvantage on Persuasion checks. Unless you wear a large cloak to conceal these deformities, you are disturbing to behold.
Inhuman Reach
At 6th level, your arms elongate, allowing you to touch the floor with your hands. In addition, you can bend them in strange and unnatural ways. Your reach increases by 5 feet. Your elongated arms also gives you advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks made to climb.
Tentacles
At 6th level, you can grow long, whipping tendrils that sprout grotesquely from your form as a bonus action expending 2 sorcery points which last for 1 round. When a creature comes within 5 feet of you or begins its turn there, it takes 3d6 bludgeoning damage. You can maintain this effect by expending 2 sorcery points at the beginning of your turn.
Warped Mind
At 14th level, your tainted form has altered the nature of your brain, making you resistant to psychic attacks, and more capable of inflicting them upon others. You gain resistance to psychic damage and have advantage on save against being charmed.
Additionally, you can emit a mind blast in a 60-foot cone as an action. Choose a number of sorcery points to expend, to a maximum of 6. Each creature in the cone must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or take psychic damage equal to 1d8 for each sorcery point expended plus your Intelligence modifier.
Monstrous Transformation
At 18th level, as a bonus action expending 3 sorcery points, you can unleash your monstrous heritage from within your body and transform into a terrible creature. Until you use your bonus action to end this effect, you have resistance to piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage, but can't cast spells of 1st level or higher. Each round you begin in this form, you expend 3 additional sorcery points.
In addition, creatures who look upon this form become frozen in horror. Each creature that can see you within 30 feet, except for allies which know to avert their gaze, must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is paralyzed while you are transformed. At the end of each of its turns, affected creatures can repeat this saving throw. A creature that succeeds this save is immune to this effect for 24 hours.
Once you use this ability, you must finish a long rest before using it again.
Changelog: 6/14/15: Added tentacles at 6th level and mind blast effect to warped mind.
6/19/15: Armor class no longer has a static increase, and instead is 13 + Dex. Scrapped indiscernible anatomy
8/2/15: Hideous Appearance separated from Aberration Blood. Hideous Appearance grants double proficiency rather than advantage on intimidation.
11/30/16: Tentacles: Reworded to activate when a creature begins its turn adjacent to you or enters that area
Monstrous Transformation: No longer requires concentration, blocks all physical damage
If I might suggest something, flavor-wise the idea of a monster-tainted bloodline is fitting for a sorcerer, but mechanically I think it's missing something. The level 6 class feature specifically feels a little lackluster on its own compared to what the official bloodlines get at this level. Dragon sorcerers get a damage bonus to appropriate spells, and resistance in exchange for a sorcery point, and wild magic lets you use sorcery points to alter enemy and ally rolls. Both of these are very useful while also fitting in with the theme of the respective paths. However, the inhuman reach feature doesn't seem quite as useful. The need to climb (in my own personal experience) isn't very common and increased reach is nice for using a touch spell on an enemy, but sorcerers have only one touch spell (shocking grasp) you'd use for that. Everything else is a buff or enchantment you'd use on yourself or a willing ally. The way I see it, there's not much going on for an aberrant sorcerer at this level, and there's not much special they can do with spells or sorcery points for a long time to make this path feel mechanically like it's a sorcerer and not some other class. Have you considered giving it a second class feature alongside inhuman reach at level 6? Perhaps something defensive with sorcery points, or something like the acidic ray feature from the Pathfinder bloodline? Either way, just my two cents. I'd totally play this for flavor if I ever had the chance, I'm just a little worried it'd feel slightly lacking compared to what other sorcerers can do.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're totally right. I'm away from my books right now, but when I can I'll slot in an additional feature and update this post. Very good observation.
DeleteCorrect me if I'm wrong, but the increased psychic damage portion of Warped Mind doesn't offer any benefit, as sorcerers have no spells that deal psychic damage. I would suggest either changing this feature, or giving them a list of additional spells that would benefit from this. The latter option seems kind of shoddy, as all "bonus spell" features only cover spell levels 1-5, so the aberrant sorcerer wouldn't see any benefit to this feature on 6-9th level spells.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Mai Terra as well - the extra reach seems like a fairly underpowered perk for a sorcerer. Some sort of acid spray would likely be better.
You know, when I wrote this, I was unaware that sorcerer's didn't have spells that dealt psychic damage (and I didn't check the spell list, which is a sin on my part.) I'll update this feature later when I'm in front of my books to give them some sort of mind blast, adp maybe I'll base it on the Mind Flayer ability. Check back later for the changes.
DeleteOne small note, aside from what is mentioned above; In the post, you say that Monstrous Transformation costs 4 sorcery points, but in the pdf, it says 3. I assume 3 is correct, but you may want to edit that, for clarity. Other than that, VERY excited for lovecraftian Archetypes!
ReplyDeleteGenerally, the PDF is the one you want to use if there's an inconsistency. I'll fix that now.
DeleteAs far as the update goes, I like the mind blast, but it says "plus your intelligence modifier", whereas Sorcerers are still Charisma casters. This might be intentional, but it stuck out to me.
DeleteTotally intentional. I like to stay away from having single ability dependant casters for every feature, and I figure that you could augment the damage with more sorcery points if pressed.
ReplyDeleteI really like this! Besides the 6th level reach feature, this seems like a very solid subclass with a lot of flavor potential
ReplyDeleteOne quick mechanics question: the Mind Blast ability states that you deal "1d8 psychic damage for each sorcery point spent plus your intelligence modifier". Does that mean that a Sorcerer with +2 intelligence that spends 6 sorcery points deals 8d8 damage, or 6d8+2? I'm almost inclined to go for the former, as Intelligence is a heavy investment for a Sorcerer.
I'm very excited to try this out at the table!
6d8+2. If you do end up playing it, let us know how it goes!
DeleteWhen the level 6 Tentacles attack, is it with Charisma + Proficiency as a magical effect, or do they have some other modifiers?
ReplyDeleteThe idea here was basically automatic damage -- no attack rolls. It's a little unorthodox, but since you won't be hanging out in melee much as a sorcerer, it shouldn't break anything.
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