Monthly Archives: November 2015
Command Voice, Specialized Tactics, Tactical Spell; #Microfeats #TeamworkWeek
Because I want my Microfeats to appear during work hours on weekdays, when I’m normally at the office, I program these to post on a time. For some reason, three of this week’s feats didn’t post, which I didn’t notice until now. So, here are the missing #TeamworkWeek feats!
Command Voice. As a standard action you can grant every ally able to hear you a number of bonus teamwork feats equal to 1 + your Charisma bonus (minimum 1). Allies do not have to meet these feats’ prerequisites, but you must grant the same teamwork feats to all your allies. They retain the feats for a number of rounds equal to 1/3 your level + your Charisma bonus (minimum 1). A character can receive bonus teamwork feats from only one use of Command Voice (of their choice) at a time. If you are granting allies a morale bonus of any kind, you may instead use this feat for only those characters as a move action. #Microfeats #TeamworkWeek
Specialized Tactics. Prereq: 1 or more teamwork feats, favored enemy or favored terrain class features. When there are favored enemies within 60 feet of you, or you are in a favored terrain, you grant allies within 60 feet access to teamwork feats you possess. The maximum number of teamwork feats you can grant is equal to the appropriate favored bonus. Allies do not have to meet these feats’ prerequisites, but you must grant the same teamwork feats to all your allies. If you apply teamwork feats due to the presence of favored enemies, and the teamwork feats benefits apply to attack rolls, damage, saving throws, save DCs, or AC, those benefits apply only in regards to the favored enemies. You may change what feats you grant as a full-round action. #Microfeats #TeamworkWeek
Tactical Spell (Metamagic) When you affect allies with a tactical spell, you also grant them a number of teamwork feats you have, equal to the tactical spell’s level. They retain these feats for the duration of the tactical spell, or one minute per level, whichever duration is shorter. They do not need to meet the feats’ prerequisites. A character can receive bonus teamwork feats from only one tactical spell (of their choice) at a time. A tactical spell takes up a spell slot one level higher than its true spell level. #Microfeats #TeamworkWeek
Adulting
It used to be, long ago, that there was a VERY narrow range of people from who you learned what being adult meant. Your parents. Teachers. Trusted family friends. Religious leaders. People of note in your town. Employers.
And all of those examples of adulthood had a real interest in making all adults and elders seem wise, powerful, and all-knowing. So with that as an example, if an adult grew up and had concerns or questions, chances were that adult didn’t share them. They didn’t ask questions, or warn the next generation that being an adult came with no manual. The facade was maintained.
When the printing press came along there was some change to this. Newspapers, books, and magazines could convey information across both great distances and long periods of time. And some people questioned what it was to be adult. But most mass media was still created by adults, for adults.
Radio and broadcast television were much the same. Some loosening of the monopoly of mass-market information, more things aimed at children, but the content providers were still almost exclusively adults, often adults with the most conservative (and thus most facade-intense) upbringings.
That began to change in the 1950s, at least in the West. While shows with family lives and adventurous teen groups had existed, in the 1950s it became increasingly clear that entertainment for teens and youths was a potential big business. Things like American Bandstand began to allow teens to speak their mind on the air, unscripted, and regularly. The teens were asked about music, or movies, or dances… but they had a regular venue to express sound bite snippets of their thoughts.
There was a cultural revolution going on in the Western World for many reasons of course, but part of that was that it’s roots were televised. Teens discovered there were more places to learn about who and what they were than established authority figures. Indeed, in time “the Establishment” became a term used to suggest that there were two societies: “pure” youths, and “sell-out” adults trying to feed a monstrous an inhuman cycle of interests that were somehow not a natural product of what youths become – as if a machine had inserted itself into human development, and adults were mysteriously the only ones blind to it.
Teens and then young adults began to claim they’d never grow up. Never care about mortgages, and raising families with more than they had, and retirement concerns. Adults, they said, were wrong. Stay young forever. Peter Pan was a Hippie, and television was his his Tinkerbell.
Lots of factors fed into the growing divide between adult and child, from the Vietnam War to Watergate to various musical movements. But one factor that keep those revolutions cycling long after their specific movements lost power was that each one put more ideas from the young out where other youths could hear, think, and reply.
The internet was one of the most powerful additions to this trend, though smart phones may actually be more powerful. Suddenly not only could teens communicate their ideas, they could do so on a nearly-even playing field. And the idea that ‘adulthood” was a staid, formal, unassailable position of authority was dealt another serious blow.
And that blow was dealt while people raised in the 40s and 50s are still around. There is, right now, a range of generational assumptions about what it is like to be an adult. And with the labeling of generations, lines have been drawn about who is biased, who is lazy, who is self-absorbed, who is racist, who is just flat evil.
A *person* can be any of those things. A generation is just a set of social norms absorbed through similarity of cultural events, and the trends that grew from group reactions to those events. Generations aren’t all lazy, or all racist.
And if you look around and try to figure out why “everyone else” you have ever known is better at “adulting” than you? Just know that people with your questions have existed since Ogg moved out of his father Ug’s cave.
Ogg just didn’t have the internet to ask the questions about why living on his own suddenly felt weird.
Beastshifter, a Pathfinder RPG Base Class in 2 paragraphs + 1 sentence.
Beastshifter: The beastshifter is a base class that grants a warrior-type character access to animalistic shapechanging powers. Use hit dice, proficiencies, class skills, skill points per level, base attack, base saves, starting wealth, and starting age as a barbarian.
Gain the animal focus class feature as a hunter of your class level, but you can use it for 1 hour per class level. This duration need not be consecutive, but it must be used in 10 minute increments. (If you somehow gain an animal companion, your animal focus ability does not apply to it). While using animal focus you gain +10 foot move, and may either gain a bite (1d6 primary attack if Medium) or two claws (1d4 secondary attacks if Medium), as decided by you when you use the ability. Beginning at 4th level you may use two animal focuses at once, or instead use wild shape as a druid of your class level (which counts against your animal focus duration). You cannot become an elemental or plant. At second level, and every two levels thereafter, you gain a rage power as a barbarian of your class level. You can only use rage powers while in animal focus or wild shape. Rage powers useable once per rage can be used only once per hour, and you cannot gain (or improve) the true rage class feature of a barbarian.
You gain no other class features. #QuickBaseClass
RuneGuard, a Pathfinder RPG Base Class in 2 paragraphs + 1 sentence.
RuneGuard: The runeguard is a base class that grants a warrior-type character access to powerful magic abilities that aren’t spells.
Use hit dice, proficiencies, base attack, base saves, starting wealth, and starting age as a ranger. Use class skills as an ranger, except your Knowledge skills are arcana, history and planes; you do not receive Survival, you do gain Use Magic Device. Gain 4 + Int mod skill points/level.
At every level you gain a rune. This is a shaman or witch hex, and you treat your runeguard level as your shaman or witch level for all hex effects. At 12th level and up you can take a major hex. At 20th level you can take a grand hex. Runes work like hexes with a single exception – to target a creature other than yourself with a rune, you must either draw the rune on them with special inks or brands (a process that takes one minute and provokes attacks of opportunity), or you must have damaged the target with a weapon within the past minute.
You gain no other class features. #QuickBaseClass
Sword and Sorcery #Microfeats #TeamworkWeek
Sword and Sorcery (Teamwork)
You and you allies can combine the powers of might and magic.
Prereqs: Base attack bonus +1 or caster level 1.
Once per combat, if you are within 30 feet of an ally with this teamwork feat, you may gain one of the following benefits:
*Force an opponent to reroll one attack roll made against you. If an ally with this feat within range has combat feats, the opponent takes a penalty equal to the number of the ally’s combat feats.
*Force an opponent to reroll one saving throw against an effect of yours. If an ally with this feat within range has metamagic feats, the opponent takes a penalty equal to the number of the ally’s metamagic feats.
* Reroll one attack. If an ally with this feat within range has sneak attack dice, or a favored enemy bonus that applies to your target, gain a bonus to the reroll equal to the number of dice or favored enemy bonus
*Reroll one saving throw. If an ally with this feat within range has an active abjuration spell running, gain a bonus to the reroll equal to that spell’s level.
#Microfeats #TeamworkWeek
Team Player #Microfeats #TeamworkWeek
Team Player. Prereq: Membership in a company, guild, militia, party, or similar organization.
Benefit: At the beginning of each character level, select one organization to apply this feat to. You can spend one hour making plans with other members of that organization. Select one teamwork feat one other member of the organization has. You act as if you had that feat, but also treat other members of the organization who were part of the planning session as having the feat, for purposes of determining if you gain its benefits.
Additionally, you may select a number of teamwork feats equal to your Cha bonus + the number of teamwork feats you have. All members of that organization treat you as if you possess those teamwork feats for the purpose of determining whether the organization members receive bonuses from their teamwork feats. You do not receive any bonuses from these feats unless you actually possess the feats yourself. You positioning and actions must still meet the prerequisites listed in the teamwork feats for members of the organization to receive the listed bonuses. #Microfeats #TeamworkWeek
Hammerspace #Microfeats #AnimeWeek
Hammerspace
No matter how carefully you are searched, you can always pull out one amazingly large hidden object.
Prereq: Deft Hands, Quick Draw
You can place one inanimate object no larger than a two-handed weapon sized appropriately for yourself into an extradimensional space. You must choose the object at the beginning of each day. You can withdraw or replace the object as a free action once per round. Treat this as an active secret chest using your HD as the caster level for any other issue. #Microfeats #AnimeWeek
Wind of 1,000 Parries and Wind of 10,000 Parries #Microfeats #AnimeWeek
Wind of 1,000 Parries
You can be really hard to hit, when you want to be.
Prereq: Base attack +6.
When you take a full attack action, you may choose to forgo any of the attacks you could make this round. For each attack you forgo, you gain a +1 shield bonus to AC until the beginning of your next turn. #Microfeats #AnimeWeek
Wind of 10,000 Parries
You can be really hard to hit, when you want to be.
Prereq: Wind of 1,000 Parries, Base attack +6.
When you take a full attack action, you may choose to forgo any of the attacks you could make this round. For each attack you forgo, you may grant yourself of one adjacent ally gain a +1 deflection or shield bonus to AC until the beginning of your next turn. You need not grant all the bonuses to a single creature, nor all be of the same type. Bonuses granted to an adjacent ally only apply as long as the ally remains adjacent. #Microfeats #AnimeWeek
Stupidly Big Weapon and Improved Stupidly Big Weapon #Microfeats #AnimeWeek
Stupidly Big Weapon
You may call it a “Sky Buster Sword,” or “the Godslayer,” or just “Gronk,” but the fact is your melee weapon of choice is stupidly big.
Prereq: Str 15 and Proficiency with all martial weapons or Jotungrip class feature.
Select one two-handed melee weapon you are proficient with. You can wield a version of this weapon intended for creatures one size category larger than yourself, treating it as a two-handed weapon. You take an additional –2 penalty on attack rolls when using this over-sized two-handed weapon. #Microfeats #AnimeWeek
Improved Stupidly Big Weapon
Sometimes, size DOES matter.
Prereq: Stupidly Big Weapon or Giant Weapon Wielder class feature, +6 base attack bonus.
Benefit: When attacking with an oversized 2-handed melee weapon, as a full-round action you may make a single melee attack with no penalties for the weapon being an oversized 2-handed melee weapon. (Note this does not give you the ability to make attacks with an oversized 2-handed melee weapon you can’t normally attack with, it just negates the penalties for doing so).
If you have Vital Strike (or its improved or greater versions) or Cleave (or Great Cleave), you can also use your oversized 2-handed melee weapon with those feats without suffering the penalty for it being an oversized 2-handed melee weapon. #Microfeats #AnimeWeek
Kung-Fu Catch #Microfeats #AnimeWeek
Kung-Fu Catch. Whether it’s a knee, elbow, the side of your foot, or even a length of braid, you always seem to have a spare surface to catch or hold something.
Prereq: Dex 13, Improved Unarmed Strike.
When calculating how much equipment you can have ready, or whether you have a free hand to catch something or draw equipment, you are treated as if you have one more hand that you actually possess. This has no impact on how many attacks you can make per round, how many weapons or shields you can use at once, or if you can fulfill somatic components, nor does it allow you to use abilities that require both hands be empty, or that you have a specific weapon in one hand and the other hand be empty if you have anything that can be used in combat in your extra “hand,” but it does allow you to carry anything you could carry in one arm and still be considered to have an arm “empty.”
#Microfeats #AnimeWeek
Owen K.C. Stephens 