It could make for an interesting theory. I will be honest, the thing that always stuck out to me about the Illithid is the fact that we have not seen what a natural born one looks like. The race as a whole are the creations from other races through a parasite, just like with the Xenomorph XX121. That makes a lot of question there for what they actually are.
Maybe in the future one of the two Gith races had developed a method to enrich the psionic potential of their race through an astral entity, or something of the far realm. That became the first Illithid.
That’s an interesting take, I think they look pretty similar even when from different races but it’s interesting that there’s no default state of being born for them.
I like it, because it can also work as a conspiracy. The initial quest giver can be an evil lieutenant posing as an ally. The loop can be hinted at by clues in the dungeons themselves. Maybe there are errors left behind that hint at a dungeon/s they’ve already finished. I could see a lot of ways to mess with the PCs.
Originally it would have come with an aluminum stylus but you could use a pen. It’s not recommended to use a pencil because of the risk of breaking off graphite inside.
I personally use an old Nintendo DSi stylus I had lying around.
Oh I don’t know. I just thought it’d be a cool idea and so I posted it. If I was currently DMing then I would figure that part out. Maybe the “keys” reveal details about the BBEG like they’re all of dwarven make or a certain script. Maybe one key could only have been made by some famous smith in a certain town.
Map out the dungeons. On the map they form three arrows pointing to a place in the middle of the most dangerous desolate Level 23 dragon infested place. But if you make it a circle instead at the center is the BBEG’s place which is actually this wood carver hut in the woods NEAR the imperial city and it turns out he’s been making realistic looking wood golems the whole time and replacing key figures in the kingdom because they are loyal to him, the plot to get rid of heroes is just insurance.
nice, infinite dungeons. how will you deal with information about where the bbeg is located? wont the players want to know where the layer is to prepare or try a breakin without all keys? or is he just sitting around in a hidden hut until everyone is dead?
This was just part of an idea I thought I’d post since it sounded fun. I replied to the other commenter with similar questions but I’m not currently DMing otherwise I would figure that out.
Also, this reminds me a bit of the Kineticist from Pathfinder 1e. Not a copy at all, just some of the same ideas. Which is cool because I really loved the Kineticist.
I haven’t bought or read it yet, but I’m loving the concept. It’s got the resource management thing, so it will fit with the other classes in DnD, while still being something different and unique, as I always thought Psionics should be.
Glad to help! I’m somebody who wishes more videos were blog posts so I totally get it. I tend to enjoy Matt Colville’s videos, though.
There’s a short summary at shop.mcdmproductions.com/…/the-talent, with a few excerpts from the PDF (in images, unfortunately), but I felt like in this case the video covered it better.
And yeah, I feel like strain could be so much fun to roleplay, compared to spell slots.
I’ve bought this and it’s so long! 110 pages, of which 70 are the powers. It looks great but in classic MCDM style (Illrigger is super complex) it is hella crunchy.
I think that’s possible and can certainly be your head canon or what you run at your table.
That said, I believe the connections between the two are entirely due to the githyanki’s enslavement by the illithids. Learning the wrong lessons from their oppressors is a sad, but not unbelievable, outcome. The note about aboleths is interesting but I’m not familiar enough with their lore to effectively speculate why they would not know about illithids - perhaps they just didn’t come into contact with them until the height of the illithid empire.
This kind of lore stuff is why I stick to homebrew tbh
One thing to mention: The saving throw type should match the means used to resist the effects.
Charisma represents your force of personality, your sense of identity, and your ability to interact with the world around you. This effect targets none of those things, nor can it be reasonably assumed to be counteracted by any of those things. Thus, this should not be a Charisma save.
Examples of effects with Charisma saves are possession (resisted by your own ability to be in control of yourself), Zone of Truth (resisted by your ability to interact with others), and forced planar travel (This makes sense with a longer explanation, but can’t really be summarized.)
This should be resisted with Constitution. It withers the bodies of those trapped within it, so naturally should be resisted by how healthy that creature is to begin with. Dexterity is an option, too, but that’s typically represented by effects that can be dodged with a split-second reaction without leaving your space.
Hmmmm, I picked CHA because I considered it to be a contest of willpower. I was originally going to make it a contested roll rather than a save against DC. But you’re right, I’d have to jump through hoops in the (already complicated) description in order to justify having a CHA save. CON makes the most sense. Since this can be used even by non-casters and casters from other schools, how do I say that your normal DC stat is ignored and DC is calculated from willpower? Is that even a reasonable thing to do?
You would simply say “The spellcasting ability modifier for this spell is Wisdom.”
Wisdom is the stat that represents your willpower, your experience, and your ability to perceive the world around you. If something attacks your mind, it is most often resisted with Wisdom for this reason.
Realistically, it probably shouldn’t be a spell, and it definitely shouldn’t be this complicated. Spells used to have this level of granularity in earlier editions, and 5e specifically moved away from that for clarity and speed of play.
My recommendation is to decide if the person this item was created for (not necessarily the PC using it) is supposed to die or not when using it. If they are, then the item just kills them. If not, they fall unconscious at 0 HP, then suffer one failed death save as normal when the item detonates. Don’t mess about with charging it with death saves or exhaustion levels, just have it do some damage.
That’s fair. I think that this is probably beyond saving; it loses a lot of it’s flair without the ability to decide how many death throws to sacrifice (like chosing to cast at higher level).
I might try to salvage the exhaustion thing into a ring that allows you to extend the range or AOE of a spell by using exhaustion levels instead of charges or something.
FWIW most of what I read online seems to indicate that charisma most closely aligns with force-of-will. But it’s pretty murky, since like you said a lot of mind control magic is WIS save.
Most of what you read online is incorrect, then, or at least misleading. Willpower isn’t actually a stat in D&D. When your character asserts their will, they succeed at doing so, full stop. The save is for whether or not the character has an opportunity to do so.
What you have instead are Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.
Intelligence saves are how much your character knows. An example here is illusion magic. Illusions are imperfect, and better understanding of nuance lets a character see an illusion as false, and then exert their will to disregard it.
Wisdom saves are about how much you can perceive and intuit. When someone attempts to control you, it’s subtle, and the saving throw is about noticing that something is wrong. Once you notice it, your character exerts their will and shrugs it off.
Charisma saves are about your force of personality and sense of identity. When someone attempts to possess your body, they are attempting to change who you are, and is directly opposed by how strongly you believe in yourself, and how strongly you believe in who you are. Once you resist the attempt, you then exert your will and drive the spirit out.
I’m aware that there is no stat for willpower, which is why finding something to roll for it is unclear. I’m not an expert but I’m not a complete beginner either.
To me, the biggest argument against rolling for willpower is that we don’t want to take away player agency for things that are internal to their character. But the counter to that is people can’t always control things internal to them, like mental disorders. A roll to see if your player stops procrastinating could be pretty entertaining, for example. Or more likely a roll to see if you give into a temptation that you know you shouldn’t, like if you’re a reformed thief presented with a great crime of opportunity. Sometimes it’s fun to add some chaos. It’s why we roll to begin with.
It’s worth noting that your description of charisma sounds a lot like willpower. That whole bit about believing in yourself 😜. I know it’s not what you meant by it, but I think it’s a pretty salient regardless.
The first issue is Death Ward. It basically negates a big downside of the item.
The item also doesn't seem that good for a desperation self sacrifice scenario. Most likely in any scenario where such a move is necessary the user won't be anywhere near full hp. Reducing the value of the item. The small range also severely limits the use of the item.
I would say in a lot of scenarios casting any aoe spell centered on the person would achieve more. A simple fireball is around 28 damage with much higher aoe.
The item requires a lot of planning and preparation to be useful rather than being an emergency item to get out of a tricky situation. Which isn't necessarily bad but goes against your inteded usage.
the low-hp scenario is why I included the bit about sacrificing death-throws for added damage. the idea is that if you sacrifice all 3 death throws, you’d have reached your massive-damage threshold anyways. WRT the AOE, its pretty big. assuming you don’t have any levels of exhaustion, and you want to survive, you get a 30 foot radius (5+5*5).
so say your character has a max HP of 90, but you’re down to 10, and you’re not exhausted (which is pretty common, i think). you could deal 70 damage to all creatures in a 30 foot radius, and still survive (unconscious, severely debuffed, and with 1 remaining death save). or 100 damage to all creatures in a 35 foot radius, and die.
but the fact that it wasn’t clear to you is a pretty good indication that this is probably too mechanically complicated to be actually fun :(
also you raise a good point about Death Ward. Thematically it would be fine - you’re “willingly sacrificing” your health, rather than taking damage, so apply it directly to your hitpoints rather than temp hitpoints, bypass all those kinds of defenses, etc… but that just adds even more mechanical complexity.
I have to admit I underestimated the damage a bit. I imagined it to be around 40 in most scenarios.
But I think streamlining the range wouldn't hurt. Instead of making it optional by expending exhaustion give it a longer base range and cause a fixed amount of exhaustion. Or perhaps make the user fall in a magical coma for X-time instead. Because I would say exhaustion rules are often ignored and I personally didn't even know how many levels there are and what they do.
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