Tome of Prowess (3.5e Sourcebook)/Going Further

Going Further

The preceding work covers the core of the game, but there are additional subsystems that many people use in games that we haven't talked about. This chapter will contain additional information for making the Tome of Prowess work with these other subsystems, as well as variant rules to tailor your gaming experience.

Using Tome of Prowess with...

Some of the additional subsystems that you may want to use with the Tome of Prowess are discussed below. Each requires their own minor updates.

Lycanthropy

Acquiring lycanthropy as a character is a mess when done with Tome of Prowess. The template grants a pile of bonus racial hit dice with accompanying skill points, and brings with it all of the issues normal monsters have with skill point totals. Those not born with the disease have to invest in control shape to make it more than just a plot hook, a skill that we have not updated in this work. These are issues that need to be dealt with before player characters can start howling at the full moon.

Animal Racial Hit Dice

Those who contract lycanthropy do not gain any racial hit dice for the animal they may now transform into. They thus gain no skill points, no base attack or save bonuses, and no attribute increases.

Natural lycanthropes are treated as an animal first, and a humanoid with class levels second, and still gain their bonus racial hit dice.

Lycanthropic Empathy

Afflicted lycanthropes do not benefit from this empathy in the same way that natural lycanthropes do. They only gain a +2 competence bonus to the indicated check attempts. Natural lycanthropes continue to receive the full benefit, though the bonus type is changed to competence.

Control Shape Skill

If you have contracted lycanthropy, you don't actually have access to any of the nifty bonuses granted by the template without the control shape skill. In effect, the skill is giving you access to power. At low levels this power is pretty out of line, but due to the skill bonus changes and lack of bonus hit dice you can't use it very reliably to return to normal. While you gain a substantial combat bonus from the change, those afflicted are likely ruined for any social encounter until the following morning. There is thus a reasonable, if largely role-playing, penalty associated with low level use of the alternate form. At higher levels, these bonuses are more reasonable, and your odds of using them only when you want to increase substantially with skill point investment. This return on investment works in a similar way as other skills in this work, and actually makes investing in control shape instead of another skill a relevant trade off. Those who invest in the skill can make use of their curse, but those who do not are likely to try to avoid using the powers it grants.

Since this is the case, characters who acquire lycanthropy must still invest in the control shape skill if they want to be able to control their transformations. There are no changes to DCs for this skill from those presented in the SRD. Unlike other skills in this work, however, they may not take 10, 15, or 20 with this skill at any time, regardless of the number of ranks they have invested in it. Attempting to control the beast within is almost always a gamble.

If a character is cured of lycanthropy, they may retrain the change shape skill as if it were any other skill or may spend the skill points in full when they next level up.

Disguise Skill

The fantastic costumes ability of the disguse skill gains an additional ability:

• Continue operation if the operator changes size due to a voluntary or involuntary form change, with no outward signs of the change.

Level Adjustment

Because lycanthropy is a less straightforward powerup now, due to the tradeoff between investing in control shape to harness the abilities and investing in a skill that would grant powers elsewhere, there is no need to apply the listed level adjustments. Afflicted lycanthropy comes with a level adjustment of +0, while natural lycanthropy carries a level adjustment of +2 and has an ECL of 2 + 1 per 3 granted animal hit dice, before any class levels are applied.

Natural Lycanthropes

Though included here for the sake of completeness, any type of natural lycanthrope is largely inappropriate as a player character race as a result of their ECL and ability to infect limitless targets with lycanthropy. If a player at your table wants to play a lycanthrope, and you are willing to allow it, they should play an afflicted one with no level adjustment instead of a natural one.

Psionics

The psionics system is largely a system of powers, and interacts with Tome of Prowess in ways similar to spells. Most of the powers are fine, but the problematic ones will need to be adjusted like the problematic spells. Psionics also added a few skills to the mix, and those need to be dealt with as well.

Psionics in Tome of Prowess are treated as simply another style of "magic", in the same way that arcane, divine, and natural are forms of magic in this work. We also assume that psionics are in use alongside magic, and that full magic-psionics transparency is in use well. These assumptions color the updates listed here. It also means that the other skills can be used to identify psionic phenomena, at the standard -5 penalty.

Problematic Powers

Like spells, any power that provides a bonus on a skill check larger than +3 needs to be eliminated or reworked. Powers that largely duplicate skill uses, like the jump spell does, should be reworked as well.

Old Skills

Autohypnosis

The uses of this skill were already folded into the revised Concentration or Endurance skills. This skill no longer exists as a result.

Knowledge (psionic)

This skill also no longer exists. As with other knowledge skills, the purely "know things about a topic" aspects of this skill are no longer represented by the skill system. The identification uses are folded in with the functions of psicraft in a new skill by the name of Psychogenia, exactly as was done for the other magic types.

Psicraft

Psicraft served as a skill to identify psionic phenomena, and these functions largely mirror those of spellcraft. These functions have been moved into a new skill named Psychogenia in a fashion similar to how the spellcraft functions were divided up among source magic type.

Use Psionic Device

This skill no longer exists, and its uses have been split amongst the following skills:

• Use a Dorje - As these are largely equivalent to wands and spell trigger items, they are handled by the Enigmas skill.
• Address or Use a Power Stone - As these are largely equivalent to scrolls and spell completion items, they are handled by the Ciphers skill.
• Other emulation uses are already covered in the applicable skills.

New Skill: Psychogenia

This skill is a class skill for all classes that previously had Psicraft as a class skill. It functions as Arcana, with the following changes:

• The Creature Insight ability can be used to identify any creature with the [Psionic] subtype. It does not otherwise identify creatures of any specific type.
• Identify Magic is renamed Identify Psionics, and can identify any psionic phenomenon by default. It can identify other types of magic at the normal -5 penalty.
• Defensive Casting is renamed Defensive Manifesting, and is used only for manifesting powers without provoking attacks of opportunity. For the purposes of this ability only, manifesting classes may use the attribute that modifies their power save DCs instead of Intelligence if they desire.

Using Psionics without Magic

If you are not using magic at all in a campaign world, or are not using certain types of magic, the Arcana, Geomancy, and Thaumaturgy skills are left in an interesting position. On the one hand, the lack of magic for them to identify leaves them somewhat devalued compared to the proposed Psychogenia skill, as well as Cultures and Enigmas. On the other hand, you can't just merge them into a super identification skill either, as that would over value the new skill.

While you could keep Psychogenia in the game, eliminate the three magic skills, and re-shuffle the creatures they identified to other skills, that solution requires a bit of work and increases the value of the monster identification abilities. In this case, it may be better to leave off the Psychogenia skill entirely and allow each of the current skills to identify psionics without penalty. You can then either allow each of these skills to work for manifesting defensively, in which case different psionic classes will gravitate towards different skills, or allow defensive manifesting to scale with class level and be an inherent part of each manifesting class. Either of these suggestions will work without as much work as purging the skills (even if you elect to rename the skills), but both lead to different emergent themes for various manifesting classes in the game.

Tome of Battle

Because the Tome of Battle has skills associated with its disciplines, and uses skill checks in some of its maneuvers, there is a bit of overlap here. There are relatively few changes that need to be implemented to use the Tome of Battle in conjunction with the Tome of Prowess, however.

Martial Lore Skill

The Martial Lore skill does not get an analogue in the Tome of Prowess, and no longer exists. Its uses for identification are broken up as follows:

• If you witness a maneuver being performed, you automatically recognize it if you can perform maneuvers from the discipline.
• Martial Scripts written in unfamiliar languages must be translated before they can be utilized. This can be done with the Ciphers skill or other magic. As long as the martial adept is present while it is being deciphered and the creature doing the deciphering does not withhold or falsify any information from the script the martial adept may later activate the script as a standard action.
• Determining the maneuvers available to a target, or recognizing a maneuver from a discipline you do not have access to, is covered by the Cultures skill and follows the standard rules for identifying the abilities of a creature.

Skill Items

The loss of skill items does interesting things to some martial maneuvers. In some games, a large boost from these items was expected and the lack of the items now is a large decrease in the ability of these characters. In other games, these items were never used for these purposes and the change won't even be noticed.

If your game expected skill items, consider adding a bonus to all skill based maneuvers equal to the initiator's Character Level. Using Character Level here in place of Initiator Level helps the maneuvers retain the same multi-classing utility they did originally. If your game did not expect bonuses from skill items, do nothing. You won't notice the change.

Discipline Key Skills

As some skills have been removed or merged, the key skills for some disciplines may no longer exist. Others have an opportunity to gain a more relevant key skill, and have been moved for that reason. The new assignments are as follows:

• Desert Wind - Acrobatics
• Devoted Spirit - Intimidation
• Diamond Mind - Concentration
• Iron Heart - Acrobatics
• Setting Sun - Psychology
• Shadow Hand - Stealth
• Stone Dragon - Endurance
• Tiger Claw - Jump
• White Raven - Affability

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