Tattoo Blood Magic

[Lobo316]

Looking for some ideas, suggestions and inspiration. Check out the following chart....



OK, these abilities are an abstract representation of a type of "blood magic" that an intelligent, homebrew, evil races uses. They are call icemen, but that's not important for purposes of this discussion. What is important is that it is understood these abilities are not for the PCS, these are only for this particular race of evil NPCs (though, any CK can do whatever they like with 'em I suppose).

I see them looking like the frost giants from Thor, only not quiet as big. More like a D&D goliath, from 3.5. Some of them, the more powerful, honored ones, cover themselves in runic tattoos. These markings are ingraved upon them my thier dark priests in a ritualistic process that imparts power to them...at a price.

So, you pick what Tatto you want (or roll randomly). Then you roll randomly on the "Blood Price" chart. The Tattoos with asterisks I'm considering you roll twice on the Blood Price chart. I'm also likely to limit the Tattoos to one for every 2 or maybe 3 HD of the creature.

What I'd like from you kind folks and fellow gamers are thoughts, in general, on the idea. Such as...

Are the Tat's themselves OK (not over powered)?
Are the Blood Prices balanced enough?
Should I remove the "random" element of rolling a "price" and just cross reference a tattoo to a matching and balanced price?
Are they any ideas any of you would like to submit for tattoos and costs?
And, finally, should I remove the "duration", and rework the costs, so that the benefits and penalties are "permanant" (always in effect)?

Look forward to you ideas and suggestions. This could become something useable by all if we have fun with it.

[Treebore]

Well, I see no reasons why it won't work just fine for NPC's. I certainly don't think any player would even want to try these with those Permanent losses. As for duration, for simplicity sake, I'd make them permanent. For all intents and purposes, they will only effectively last one encounter anyways, so why make yourself do math? I'd also have the "price" be effectively "permanent" too. I'd only worry about durations if a player were to ever use it.

[Lobo316]

Well, I see no reasons why it won't work just fine for NPC's. I certainly don't think any player would even want to try these with those Permanent losses. As for duration, for simplicity sake, I'd make them permanent. For all intents and purposes, they will only effectively last one encounter anyways, so why make yourself do math? I'd also have the "price" be effectively "permanent" too. I'd only worry about durations if a player were to ever use it.

Hmmm...good points there Tree. I may do that. Change everything to permanant. Hmmmm...

[Lobo316]

Well, I see no reasons why it won't work just fine for NPC's. I certainly don't think any player would even want to try these with those Permanent losses. As for duration, for simplicity sake, I'd make them permanent. For all intents and purposes, they will only effectively last one encounter anyways, so why make yourself do math? I'd also have the "price" be effectively "permanent" too. I'd only worry about durations if a player were to ever use it.

OK Tree, I like that suggestion. Does make it easier. I've run a couple of encounters already using these rules (and least the rough structure) and yes, not having to keep track of rounds and activations is a brilliant suggestion for monsters. Check it out...


Now, the next thing I'm going to work on is, do I match up the "price" with the boon, or do I keep the price random? The nice thing about matching them up is that I do not have to worry about re-rolling contradictions, and...from a players perspective, maybe they start to recognize the effects of certain tattoo patterns and thus start to learn the weakness as well, if the two are matched up. Hmmmm??? Something to think about.

[Treebore]

Again, for NPC's, the price doesn't matter nearly as much as it will to a player. Do you care? I sure don't. So I'd stick with the fun the randomness gives it, or simply chose. Either way, your the CK, so whichever you do, its "right" for your NPC's. Only worry about it if your going to make it available to PC's.