Changelings

[TobyFox2002]

I have run across an issue creating a very unique race and at this point I think I need mechanic advice in getting what I have created to work with hero labs. I realize that this may not be exactly what this particular thread is for but I ask a bit of indulgence. For both subject (and my tiredness).

Basically what I have is an insectile, subversive shape-shifting emotional vampire that feeds on love and lust. They have a strict racial hierarchy which directly effects what they do, and how they conduct themselves. This creates the first difficulty. Every five HD they gain a new ability called metamorphosis, where they gain extra abilities based on the chosen paths they can take their character. Initially, I wanted INSTEAD of class levels, I quickly realized how insane that would be. But, the alternative is almost equally as.. difficult.

From what I have found the best way for me to do this is through required racial templates, the problem becomes that they can choose to add to a set of skills by adding a new augmentation or improve one they already have.

And that is where I stumble, I'm not sure how I might do that, cleanly without waste, without all manners of choosers and hidden feats and massively redundant spaghetti-code if...then constructs.

I understand that I do not give a great deal of information here and its barely touches what the race is or what each of the metamorphosis grants. But as I see it, all of that is irrelevant to the question.

I am sorry for the long winded post, I had to edit it several time, cleaning away unneeded information to keep it concise. If you have questions, on this I'd be happy to give more details.

 

[Sendric]

I would need to know how the paths work. Do you choose a single path early on, or does each choice lead to a new set of choices? Once you've chosen a path, can you choose another at a higher level? Depending on the compexity of these paths, you may be to able to use a combination of user tags and bootstrap conditionals.

 

[TobyFox2002]

I would need to know how the paths work. Do you choose a single path early on, or does each choice lead to a new set of choices? Once you've chosen a path, can you choose another at a higher level? Depending on the complexity of these paths, you may be to able to use a combination of user tags and bootstrap conditionals.

The race gains a new one at 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th. The Primary ones are Magical, Infiltration, Command, Flight. I'm contemplating two others, but those are more NPC, Hive-Mother and Drone.

Secondary ones are basically advanced versions of these, I do not rule out the possibility of branching paths or paths that require more than one, but at this time they are quite linear, and just upgrades. I am going through and doing the final edit of the racial description as it will appear in the player's handout, when that's done I'll post a link to my dropbox or googledocs.

Also, sorry about the name for this thread, I was very sleepy when I posted, there are other difficulties I have but this is the biggest, once this is done the class will be "playable" despite the problems.

 

[Sendric]

I think making it a linear path is the best way to go. If the choice you make at 6th dictates what happens at 12th, 18th, and 24th then it's actually going to prove quite a bit easier to deal with.

My suggestion would be to have a feat chooser at 6th which would allow the player to choose their path. Each path would have a special that gets bootstrapped by the feat chooser based on the choice made. Each of these specials would then bootstrap everything that goes along with this choice based on character level. If you need a specific example of this feel free to email me, and we can go over it.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

This whole thing again makes me badly want to add a "Configurable" to d20 like Pathfinder has. It would make this so much easier. I think its at least two more releases before I could add it though.