I'm just starting up a new IH campaign, and, as per the title, I have two things I'm wondering about.
1) Necromancy: I'm working on an NPC that might become either an ally or a BBEG. I plan on making her an arcanist with necromancy as her primary school. However, while I really appreciate the fact that IH puts healing into necromancy, I want her to be able to do more than just make skeletons and heal people. So what I'm wondering is if it's feasible to invert the Healing Hands spell method. For example, instead of healing damage, inflicting damage; instead of healing blindness, causing blindness. I like the idea of her being able to inflict penalties and harm with a touch. Obviously, a straightforward inversion makes for a pretty damn powerful touch attack. I had thought of switching the d8s to d4s or d6s, and limiting the maximum number of dice of damage to the character's necromancy mastery level. And then there's the question of the non-damage uses of the method: blindness, deafness, ability penalties, etc. What do you think?
What are some good guidelines in general for creating new spell methods?
2) Human opponents: In my world, there are only humans (no elves, orcs, etc). I do have some "monsters", but I had hoped to make them a rare occurrence ("Oh, another chimera? Yawn..."). Point being, most of my PC's opponents in this campaign are going to be human. So my other question is, how do I vary them enough to keep them interesting? I don't mean in terms of mechanics or build, but in terms of fluff and concept. I mean, bandits are all well and good, but I can't replace every monster with bandits, and armies of bandits are a little unbelievable. I don't expect to see my PCs taking on any town guards or anything. There's the potential that one of the principalities of the empire might make a break for independence, and a revolutionary war would break out. I'm considering going with this campaign arc solely so that I'll have a feasible source of human opponents. Any ideas on this front? My other idea is to tweak my world so that there are more monsters, elementals, etc. I'll be okay for a little while since my current plot arc involves undead and a arcanist BBEG with henchmen.
1) Necromancy: I'm working on an NPC that might become either an ally or a BBEG. I plan on making her an arcanist with necromancy as her primary school. However, while I really appreciate the fact that IH puts healing into necromancy, I want her to be able to do more than just make skeletons and heal people. So what I'm wondering is if it's feasible to invert the Healing Hands spell method. For example, instead of healing damage, inflicting damage; instead of healing blindness, causing blindness. I like the idea of her being able to inflict penalties and harm with a touch. Obviously, a straightforward inversion makes for a pretty damn powerful touch attack. I had thought of switching the d8s to d4s or d6s, and limiting the maximum number of dice of damage to the character's necromancy mastery level. And then there's the question of the non-damage uses of the method: blindness, deafness, ability penalties, etc. What do you think?
What are some good guidelines in general for creating new spell methods?
2) Human opponents: In my world, there are only humans (no elves, orcs, etc). I do have some "monsters", but I had hoped to make them a rare occurrence ("Oh, another chimera? Yawn..."). Point being, most of my PC's opponents in this campaign are going to be human. So my other question is, how do I vary them enough to keep them interesting? I don't mean in terms of mechanics or build, but in terms of fluff and concept. I mean, bandits are all well and good, but I can't replace every monster with bandits, and armies of bandits are a little unbelievable. I don't expect to see my PCs taking on any town guards or anything. There's the potential that one of the principalities of the empire might make a break for independence, and a revolutionary war would break out. I'm considering going with this campaign arc solely so that I'll have a feasible source of human opponents. Any ideas on this front? My other idea is to tweak my world so that there are more monsters, elementals, etc. I'll be okay for a little while since my current plot arc involves undead and a arcanist BBEG with henchmen.
