In my campaign we introduced the idea of Weavescars about 20 levels ago. In the 4e Forgotten Realms there are spellscars, which people are generally familiar with has a possible impact of interacting with spellplague. In my campaign I explained active pockets of spellplague as being a constant battle between wild magic an ordered (or Weave) magic that survived the death of the goddess of magic.
One of the larger themes of the entire campaign is collecting the remnants of the Weave in a hope of using it to bring back Mystra, said goddess of magic. When they collect this Weave, they contain it in themselves and it becomes a Weavescar.
Weavescars give the PCs access to special boon-like powers as well as the option (now that the party Wizard has done the research to “unlock it”) a feat imitating being a Chosen of Mystra. I’m calling it Chosen of Magic. Join me, as I craft that feat…
To start the pre-requisites for this feat are steep. Epic tier, weavescarred, and the party Wizard, Kotton, must perform a ritual modifying the Weave magic inside you to activate it. It’s also worth noting, that I have the advantage of just running a home game and so I don’t care about balance that much. Which is good, I expect this feat to be too powerful and I’m good with that.
Next, the benefits. Off to the FR Wiki for research!
What did the Chosen of Mystra get from being Chosen? Most magic that was easier to cast. I can think of a few ways to do this in 4e…however, while balance is not the largest concern, this could be game-breaking. Let’s see if we can come back to that if we need something to make the feat feel more Chosen-ish.
They understand magic better and can detect it. In 4e that’s all the same thing, Arcana Skill. I’m thinking it grants training in Arcana and if you’re already trained you gain a +2 divine bonus to the skill.
They become immune to some magic as well as disease, poison, and age. Age is easy. Done. They’re epic, after all. Disease…not likely to come up…I don’t mind leaving it out or tossing it in. Poison and magic are harder to do well. I could give them straight up resistances…but that’s not very exciting and could be problematic. I’m thinking instead of an encounter power where if they are hit with an effect that a save can end that is either arcane or poison they can automatically succeed at that save immediately. Only problem is that the “arcane” keyword isn’t used too much in the mechanics of the game…but as a DM I’ve made it work in this campaign just by using some common sense or making a DM-call about if a power is using magic or not.
Chosen of Mystra are supposed to be tougher than expected…Toughness as a free feat, perhaps?
There are also moments that the Chosen can communicate with each other magically and get free spells to cast. Well, luckily Mystra is dead, so I don’t have to give them all that. But I’m not loathe to give them the ability to communicate. I’m thinking that they each get the Sending ritual as an encounter utility with a casting time of instantaneous as a minor action.
Lastly, most difficultly, and most importantly is the Silver Fire. It does a bunch of powerful stuff…but is also iconic. I’m thinking that what I’ll do is give a boost to the Weavescar boons they already have and reflavor it as being silvery instead of blue. So this benefit is individualized to each PC.
So, here’s the final write up:
Chosen of Magic (feat)
Pre-requisites: Epic Tier, Weavescarred, Chosen of Magic ritual is performed on you.
Benefits:
- You become trained in Arcana. If you are already trained in Arcana you gain a +2 divine bonus to Arcana.
- You become immune to the effects of aging and disease.
- Once per encounter as an immediate reaction when you are affected by an arcane or poison effect that a save can end you can automatically end the effect.
- You gain the Toughness feat for free.
- You can perform the Sending ritual for free as a minor action (Time: Instantaneous).
- Your Weavescar power gets a small bonus, your weave scar turns from blue to silver as do your Weavescar powers.
Going along with this Chosen of Magic feat, I also need Weavescar powers for everyone. But, I’m running to the end of this article, so next time, Weavescar powers!
In the meantime, what do you think about the Chosen of Magic feat? Too good? Given that it’s for a home campaign, does it matter if it’s too good? It is missing something important? What would you do different?
Since it sounds like everyone in your group can (and will) get it, it’s not unbalancing. And given that you’re in epic tier, that is fine as well. Saving throws are an essential part of an epic adventurer’s daily breakfast. And given that it’s homebrew, it really doesn’t matter. I think homebrew campaigns should always be unbalanced, in my opinion.
The only thing I’ll mention is that this sounds like a feat tax on your players. It’s so good that I expect everyone will take it. In that case, why bother forcing them to burn a feat if you expect them all to take it anyway?
Using a feat slot to take this power is a cost, but it’s such a low cost everyone will buy the product. So you either need to raise the cost to make it questionable if each character will take it, (expensive ritual components, undesirable side effects, etc.) or you can just handwave the cost because it’s cool and you want your players to have this.
It looks okay to me. Maybe for the arcane/poison effect the rider could be that it ends at the end of your next turn, rather than instantaneously? Overall it looks pretty cool, and since they’re epic anyway it’s probably not making the wizard any more gamebreaking than it already is.
I’m looking forward to seeing the powers!
Thanks Alio…speaking of powers…game is tomorrow…but bet they’ll want those for then…and I have encounters to design. Busy night ahead of me. :-)