Elementals and items with abilities

Lysha · Post by **Lysha** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 6:53 am

(My best ideas come to me riiiiiiight as I am about to sleep)

I just finished playing with Sylnas and went to bed when I started thinking about the House insignia for Drow and how when you type a ceritan keyword, they can float.

How about something like this for the gensai?

For Air
<Worn on the back> A pair of wings
Have a keyword for the wings and they can fly or float for a while

For Fire
<Worn on head> Flaming hair
A keyword for a fireshield for a while

For Water
<Worn on neck> Gills
Keyword for waterbreathing for a while

For Earth
<worn on head> Either a shimering stone or have a flower on their head
Stoneskin for a while

Couldn't and didn't think of anything for Aasimar or Tieflings.

The Earth and Fire ones I couldn't think of something better...but I thought it'd be neat to see flaming hair or a flower growing out of someone's head...

And maybe these items could be marked as cursed so that they can not lose them. Like how the holy symbols used to be.

Now, I'm going to bed.

Tortus · Post by **Tortus** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:39 am

I'd be happy to just have their racial abilities on items like that, like create water for water genasi, produce (control) flame for fire genasi and something like pass without trace for earth genasi, which would make them untrackable.

For the aasimar, witch light, in favour of daylight. Darkness or any similar spell isn't coded as far as I know, so tieflings might just have to do without.

Argentia · Post by **Argentia** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:42 pm

Darkness or any similar spell isn't coded as far as I know, so tieflings might just have to do without.

Well, to my knowledge tieflings can innately cast blindness once per day, and the blindness spell is in the game.

Tortus · Post by **Tortus** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:42 pm

According to my sourcebooks, it's darkness that they can cast once per day.

Argentia · Post by **Argentia** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:28 pm

Races of Faerun doesn't say anything either way, but I thought it did...o_O Though I know that in Icewind Dale 2 tieflings received the ability to cast blindness once per day.

Yonna · Post by **Yonna** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:13 am

Air Genasi do -not- have wings.

Lukon · Post by **Lukon** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:45 am

Well, there are no solid rules for genasi appearance, but true, genasi don't generally have wings, and they almost certainly don't work. I happen to play a winged genasi (sylphs being viable genasi parents), and trust me....his wings don't do anything but look funny and get him in trouble.

Rhytania · Post by **Rhytania** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 2:29 am

Well, there are no solid rules for genasi appearance, but true, genasi don't generally have wings, and they almost certainly don't work. I happen to play a winged genasi (sylphs being viable genasi parents), and trust me....his wings don't do anything but look funny and get him in trouble.

Actualy there is. While Aasimars and Tieflings can have wings as a manifestation of their blood line, air genasi do not need wings as they're blood line are elementals. Ie their physical bodies ARE air. Wings would just contradict the fact that genasi embody the ELEMENT and wings are something that just ride over air and have nothing to do really with the physical properties of it.

Amalia · Post by **Amalia** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 2:39 am

Likewise with water genasi and gills-- besides which, water genasi already can breathe water all the time, and the trouble lies more in the coding of drowning when you don't lose health due to water.

In any case, with races that *do* have activation abilities, maybe some slotless item could be attached to them with said ability on it (unless having an item doesn't code-wise remove the need for components)? The only trouble is, even if something appropriate to the creature were thought up, I'm of the impression that it's not always immediately apparent that they're not entirely human, especially if they do something to hide their peculiar feature: wearing glasses or dying hair or something along those lines, in some cases.

Anyway, I do think the items idea is a good one, just not perhaps those particular items.

Lysha · Post by **Lysha** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 3:01 am

I really didn't mean just those items. I was just trying to get my point across.

This might be my first post that actually had more than two replies...

Tortus · Post by **Tortus** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:38 am

Alright, just to clear things up regarding the racial abilities.

Monsters of Faerûn wrote: PLANETOUCHED, GENASI

Air
Special Qualities: Mingle with wind

Fire
Special Qualities: Reach to the blaze

Earth
Special Qualities: Merge with stone

Water
Special Qualities: Call to the wave

-

Mingle with Wind (Sp): Once per day, an air genasi can cast levitate as a 5th-level sorcerer.

Merge with Stone (Sp): On[c]e per day, an earth genasi can cast pass without trace as a 5th-level druid.

Reach to the Blaze (Sp): Once per day a fire genasi can cause any nonmagical flame within a 10-foot radius to either diminish to coals or flare to the brightness of daylight and double its normal radius of illumination. This magical effect does not change the heat or fuel consumption of the fire. The ability lasts for 5 minutes.

Call to the Wave (Sp): Once per day, a water genasi can create water as a 5th-level druid.

Monster Manual I wrote: PLANETOUCHED

AASIMAR
Special Attacks: Daylight

TIEFLING
Special Attacks: Darkness

-

Daylight (Sp): An aasimar can use daylight once per day as a 1-st level caster or a caster of his class levels, whichever is higher.

Darkness (Sp): A tiefling can use darkness once per day (caster level equal to class levels).

Yzelle · Post by **Yzelle** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 6:44 pm

*pouts*

I want darkness...

Surely we can figure out a way to make it as a spell, hm?

Lukon · Post by **Lukon** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 1:03 pm

Is there any way that these spell-like abilities (I have no clue what to do with some of the conversions) could work under the ability system, instead of as spell slots? I understand if it would be a lot of work, code-wise, but if it isn't too terrible, it'd be really appreciated. It's a long haul to be able to afford a race, and an innate ability defines RP as much as the number of arms and legs someone has.