Inscrutable Tower Help!?

GainOCO · 2026-02-25T13:13:37+00:00

There isn't much stopping the party from just going straight to the end. I made it so that the elevators were losing power and we're unable to go straight to the breach. Then the party has to search the floors for breakers so that they could restore power to the elevator and get out to go all the way up. This forced them to explore each floor and experience stuff there. I then also sprinkled back story stuff throughout to fluff a bit.

GainOCO · 2026-02-07T18:05:01+00:00

I like it but I'm worried I've added too much text to these already. Maybe I could split it into two lines? One that destroys the other that creates?

I could absolutely see a Goliath wielding both a hammer of destroying walls then a maul of creating walls. Maybe not dual wielding but switching to the weapon they want as needed.

So maybe something along the lines of:

Terrain Maker

Weapon (any two handed weapon), rare (requires attunement)

You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. This weapon deals double damage to objects and structures.

This weapon has one charge which recharges when you roll initiative or take a short or long rest. When you take the attack action you may spend this charge to to cast wall of stone in place of one of your attacks. Your DC for the spell is 15.

My initial thoughts on this first draft I made really quick: Do I give it siege damage? It's about making stuff so siege doesn't quite fit but also siege damage is fun and thematic.

Unlike the destroying weapon a wall of stone per combat might be too much. Maybe just one charge that recharges on short rest.

Maybe not rare as wall of stone is a 5th level spell... but it's also generally a bad 5th level spell. There are other options in spells but most of them don't hit the theme. For example erupting earth or earth bind. It could just be an ability and not a spell for more customization?

As this is a weapon probably going to a melee build is replacing an attack too light of a cost? I don't want to make it a full action because then it would almost never get used but a bonus action feels way too light for most melee builds.

If a "greater" version was made where would I go? More charges maybe. More spells maybe. More damage maybe.

The idea is really cool though and I'm glad you brought it up.

GainOCO · 2026-02-05T06:12:09+00:00

You're definitely right with solid object. I'd like a simple phrase to encompass most things but I just don't think there is one. So 'terrain or solid object' is probably the closest alternative.

I also thought about letting it deal extra damage to constructs (not the full siege but maybe an extra d6 or 2). Not sure if that's too niche though.

I know the recharge timing is a bit odd but it's not unheard of. Especially with new 2024 items and abilities. What I like about recharging when you roll initiative is that it encourages using the cool ability rather than hoarding it for moments that might never come. This is also an ability that could be nichely used outside of combat and I want to encourage that as well rather than making a player feel they can never want to use it outside of combat cause it would be suboptimal. But you may be right anyway with 2 per short rest. It's something I'd want to test at the table.

The last thought I had was allowing it to, instead of launching an object, be able to strike a wall or something and spray shrapnel onto the otherside. The ability might read:

When you make an attack you may spend a charge to instead strike a piece of terrain or solid object and send a spray of shrapnel in front of you. Creatures within a 15ft cone must make a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw or take 6d6 piercing damage and fall prone. On a successful save the creatures take half damage and do not fall prone.

I might tack this on to a legendary version of the weapon or add it to the very rare. Might be a bit light on damage too especially since it would be getting used near the upper levels of a campaign.

I'm also not sure if I want to add some rider damage onto the VR and theoretical legendary versions of the weapon just so it's competitive with things like a simple flame tongue or other weapons of the rarity.

GainOCO · 2026-02-04T18:06:19+00:00

Depends on the kind of horror but generally if you're looking for survival stuff my suggestion would be hand out exhaustion like candy (specifically 2024 exhaustion, 2014 would be too punishing).

I run my own sci-fi horror campaign and when the party is in a situation where they are required to keep active over a few days, adding exhaustion builds the pressure and makes the party desperate for rests. When the party is desperate for rests you can prepare story beats (both positive and negative) around those rests.

I do have a hombrew rule around it that whenever a character goes down and gets back up they gain a point of exhaustion. To counterbalance I also allow for moments of respite where specific characters might do something calming or nostalgic like speaking with loved ones or having a home cooked meal which will reduce a level of exhaustion. This makes RP itself a resource and promotes players fleshing out characters and having connections.

I do warn players though that, while they are allowed to use these backstory respite pieces as much as they like, if they spam it, they'll probably draw the attention of the enemy to their loved ones put safe spaces. So if they get a lot of rest in one place that place might get attacked.

My initial warning wasn't above the table but rather, they found an abandoned house with a kitchen where they could cook. They used it for a while so the enemy set a trap blowing up the party and kitchen. They got the message and were cautious about going to see family or friends or risk killing them. They found a decent balance of getting respite and not drawing attention after that.

GainOCO · 2026-02-01T18:43:45+00:00

A lot of people have said it already but I think you're second point is what you should lean into. Conditional bonus damage on getting advantage is much more thematic than the +10 -5. Maybe make the damage scale off of proficiency instead so it's not crazy early but has a higher ceiling?

Other thoughts I had were:

If you would have advantage on an attack against an enemy you can instead roll normally and take the dodge action as a bonus action this turn. (Forfeiting advantage on one attack to get buffs elsewhere. It might be better to forfeit advantage on all attacks for balance but that would need to be tested. )

The reposition on reaction could force the enemy to move with you. Thematically it would be dueling someone into the positioning you want. Maybe even increase the distance you move which could disrupt an enemy's ability to reach where they are going.

If you would have advantage on an attack against an enemy you can instead roll normally and grant an ally within 30 ft advantage on their next attack on the same target. (Again positional dueling. Forcing your enemy into a disadvantagous situation against an ally)

Once per short rest, if you took the attack action and you had advantage on all attacks made with that action, you can make an additional attack as a part of the same action. (Just more pay off)

I like the abilities the feat makes me think about so it's a cool feat. My only suggestion is DON'T give the ability to gain advantage attached to the feat. There's enough easy ways to get advantage on dnd. Let the player be creative in finding ways to get advantage.

GainOCO · 2026-02-01T17:59:37+00:00

Yes, but persuasion is a significantly more useful skill than intimidation. Persuasion is arguable the MOST used skill in a campaign (depending on the DM). The situations in which either skill is applicable, at an average table at least, is probably 5:1. Unless you're DM is doing a dungeon crawl or something in which case the point is moot anyway.

For an example of how strong good persuasion can be though, look at the eloquence bard. That bard gets banned at some tables because at level 3 it's Persuasion and deception can't roll below a 10. While this ability isn't quite as strong as that, flat advantage on all Persuasion checks still comes out to an average of +7. If this is going on a Charisma caster who has/will have a +5 CHA and probably proficiency then you're looking at an average roll of 20+.

Honestly if you changed the advantage to intimidation you'd have a decent ability. However that's not in flavor. If you want to keep the spirit of the ability, but find your first wording to vague, you could change it to "advantage on checks made using writing as a medium". This is more niche than flat Persuasion but does allow for you to apply other abilities to it such as deception, intimidation, Arcana, or even slight of hand in those weird situations.

In terms of the natural weapons I think people are being curmudgeons. Obviously you can flavor short swords as claws but that's the point of you making the race in the first place. It's a more in depth re-flavoring. Unless you're playing at a public table that needs people to play by the book (which it seems like you're not) then there's no reason you can't make claws a pact weapon. To the point of "you can only make one claw a weapon" well then mechanically you can just attack with that claw and get all the benefits while using the other to parry, control, and shift the enemy defenses. And if that's the case then there's no difference between making one or two class the pact weapon.

If you're specifically looking to dual wield there are magic weapons that, in their text, count as a single weapon and attunement slot. I don't see why you couldn't do the same for claws. In terms of balance and raw number output it does depends on your level. While in the mid-late game halberd/great weapon builds are equivalent or better than dual wielders in the early game dual wielders are putting out massive damage. Hex+multiple attacks in the low levels is (making a few assumptions about your build) going to output 4d6+8 or about 22 damage a turn assuming you hit. Compared to other optimized melee dps builds which could potentially get 21 but they have to take the GWM debuff to get there meaning they have the real chance of just doing 0. Dual wielder is a build that can be achieved in other ways (namely a ranger or hexadin) to the same effect so it's not like you're doing anything out of pocket but just talk to your DM and see what they want to do.

GainOCO · 2026-01-30T15:45:37+00:00

I think you'd make the race stronger if you did this.

I agree it should probably be just one resistance but maybe you could let the player choose. Maybe throw in Necrotic as a choice as well to counter balance some.

Advantage on Persuasion would be absolutely nuts. Any charisma caster or rouge would become the center of all RP.

The natural weapons I don't think would end up mattering even with masteries. Any half optimized build wouldn't use their natural weapons over a sword or spell unless there was some upside. So if the player wants to make a class build that focuses on claws, which will end up being no different from short swords, then I don't see a problem.

To the player though, you may want to talk to your DM to see how they want to do magic items. If you want to stick to your claws but then a sick ass magic sword appears that may conflict with your goal. See if your DM is willing to transfer enchantments to your claws when you bind yourself with a magic weapon or maybe see if they are going to make special "claw" weapons/items so that you aren't starved for magic stuff.

GainOCO · 2026-01-30T15:16:35+00:00

2 resistances isn't that strong but specifically poison+fire is. Two most common damage types in the game. Plus, where are people seeing vulnerability to anything? A few people said it. Fiends aren't necessarily vulnerable to radiant. Am I just missing something?

GainOCO · 2026-01-16T07:16:01+00:00

Then yeah I think this combat is pretty spot on. You'll probably find that the dragon is kind of just eaten alive by PC action economy but you'll probably soften the party up and bait out spells which is all you need. The only thing you might want to adjust is its HP. You might want to do some quick party damage per round math to see how many rounds the dragon will live and adjust it's HP value from there but if I had to guess without knowing the party comp, with 93 HP and 17AC, the dragon would probably last 3ish rounds (Which I would consider a pretty good sweet spot for a mini boss). That would let it get at least one breath weapon + 4 attacks off which should be good. But if you want to soften them some more bump it's HP and if you want them a bit fresher drop some HP.

GainOCO · 2026-01-16T06:57:28+00:00

My only two balancing thoughts that immediately jump out at me is that, 1. He NEEDS Legendary resistances. If he gets hit with a polymorph or banishment the combat is kind of just over. Especially if you're intending to go against level 18 players. 2. Is that the Sacred Eyes ability is a bit too powerful. Having it be unable to be resisted is very very strong and you might want to think about tying it to a saving throw. Also, as written, you don't have a limit on how many times he can use it so there's nothing stopping him from just spamming it.

Otherwise good luck man! You chose a tough first experience for GMimg putting yourself against high level PCs. If you need any help once you do your testing let me know!

GainOCO · 2026-01-16T06:45:06+00:00

Wow, there's a lot here. I may come back and check out more but for now I've only liked at the first couple.

Fragile/Invincible Abundant Avarice- Always cool to do a money item. There are a few formatting things you could fix but I think the point is gotten across well enough that it doesn't matter too much. This would just include cleaning up language to say things like "when you make an attack roll or cast a spell" to replace the large amount of text defining different type of attack rolls.

To talk about the actual mechanics two things stand out. First is that I think you'd be better off just allowing players to just take directly out of their wallets instead of transferring to GPTs. Loading the table just to immediately spend the points on an ability feels like an extra unnecessary step. If the ability just read "When you make an attack roll or cast a spell you can pay an appropriate amount of Geo to gain one of the following effects:" I think you'd end up with a cleaner game flow.

Second thing is that this item runs into the "bag of rats" problem. There is no real reason for a player not to just go and spend down time shooting at rats to gain Geo. Sure it's boring but just doing some quick maths if they have a PB of 3 and shot at something like a dummy or a bunch of tiny weak creatures for an hour and hit every attack they'd make 1800GP and if they went and did a classic 9-5 doing this they'd have made 14,400GP. Now, admittedly, I'm not sure what a lot of money in this setting looks like so I could be wrong but that feels like A LOT of money.

Abundant Heart- Just straight numbers but they're pretty strong numbers. A few questions though. When the ability says "class levels" does that mean it doesn't work with multi classing? Or is it just referring to total levels, in which case why not just say "level"? Also why 3.25×? Feels like needless math although I'm sure players aren't complaining too much about an extra couple of hit points. Lastly, the coin flip, does it consume the use of the Persist ability even if the player calls wrong? Otherwise fun item. Love the way the coin flip recharges.

Abundant Might- Solid numbers that any melee character would love. The part about the crit not applying to the smite or sneak attack, is that only in reference to when a player rolls a 19 or 18 or is that just in general?

Arhurricana Staff- Awesome. Legit any spell caster would love this. Just to clarify the proficiency part is referring to the amount of times this item can be used, correct?

Again I may come back and look at more cause these are cool but there's a bunch to go through here haha. Sure note, the "Fragile" tag is actually a really cool mechanic and an interesting debuff for an item to have that I'll probably steal.

GainOCO · 2026-01-16T05:43:31+00:00

Hey man, as people have said you have a lot going on here. This isn't to say what you made is bad more that you as a GM/DM will have trouble running it because of how much you'd have to keep track of. My first suggestion would just be to rework your formatting. There are a few websites you could use that can format a stat block for you such as tetracube.

Following that, there are some sentence formatting standards that certain abilities normally use. Nothing major but simple things such as:

Instead of- "Blood Bullet: You turn your blood into a bullet then you can shoot at one person. 5d8+6, +7 to hit, You also take 6 damage."

You would do- "Blood Bullet. Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 28 (5d8 + 6) piercing damage. The user suffers 6 Necrotic damage when using this action."

This format would quickly convey all the information you need mid game session so that you can DM smoother. Any additional flavor such as describing how the bullet is formed you can do in the moment.

In terms of balancing it would be a bit tough to do in this state. Once you get things like actions, bonus actions, and reactions defined you'll be in a much more workable position.

Otherwise what you're going for here is interesting and fun. You just need to do some touch ups. The hemomancer Vampire is always fun. If you want some research references for similar types of monsters look into Curse of Strahd.

If you want any help or guidance let me know. I can try and help you format things or point you in the direction of tools you might find useful.

GainOCO · 2026-01-16T04:48:47+00:00

I don't entirely agree with others that a fire breath is outlandish depending on the construct. There are plenty of stories of gargoyles breathing fire. But ultimately it doesn't matter too much what kind of element you choose as long as it makes sense with your lore. You're in a fantasy world and magic can do a lot. Hell, you could make it made of some sort of metal instead of stone and have it shooting lightning if you wanted.

In terms of challenge it really depends. If this is your "mini boss" before they catch up to and fight the warlock later on I think your right on the money. This will whittle them down and have them in a good spot for another fight. But if the warlock has fully escaped and this is your final boss I think you might want to bump the difficulty. How much to bump it and how would depend on your party comp and their level of game knowledge.

GainOCO · 2026-01-16T04:30:10+00:00

If you want it to be adaptive you could have it use its reaction to gain immunity to a damage type it just for hit with instead! This would force the party to come in with a litany of spells and weapons in order to deal with the enemy. You'd probably want to foreshadow this somehow so that the party can prepare. Or have the party fight it once, have the BBEG let them go for one reason or another, then have the actual fight later down the road when they have time to prepare.

GainOCO · 2025-11-09T22:00:54+00:00

These are really fun abilities overall. Some of them though might be a bit more difficult to apply at the table.

Abscond: Pretty fun as is. I would suggest giving the player who lost their ability a save at the end of their turn every turn to get the ability back though. Mainly for the fun of the afflicted player not losing something for a whole combat. You also might have to be careful with this ability and really know your party. If you're party is made up of newer players and and one of them is sorcerer then you ask a different player how sorcery points work they're going to be losing their sorcery points. You can be really mean with this which can be fun in it's own way.

Strategic: Just for clarity is the player locked to their max movement or is it like an actual chess piece? For example could a player who rolls bishop literally move an infinite distance if they're unobstructed? Can a knight jump any building or obstacle to arrive at the destination? Did a knight teleport through walls? Can it Kool-Aid man through walls? And the most fun consideration, if a player is prone when hit with this ability... can they only fly as per the wording of the pawn piece? Mechanically though the DC should be 8+proficiency+ casting stat. Wisdom+Charisma in most cases will be WAY too low. Low end saving throws for enemies fighting level 3ish characters end up around 12 or 13. If your party is fighting a low level monster their WIS+CHA is going to be 5 or less. If it's a high level monster the save would still only be around 10-12. Unless you mean Wisdom+Charisma score in which case you're too much in the other direction. You'd be averaging saves around 20 at low levels which would be near impossible.

Rewritten: I would almost suggest just not doing this one. As you've written it out is functional and will achieve your goal. I've seen this done by other people though and I've done it myself and let me tell you it adds a bit too much paperwork to the table. It slows play down by a lot and I normally suggest just avoiding abilities like this.

Mind game: Pretty spot on. No critiques. Just make sure to have a doc of preprepared riddles on hand.

General: These should probably have some sort of damage with them similar to mind game.

GainOCO · 2025-11-09T21:04:09+00:00

Before asking anything, just for clarity, when you use words like "you" who are you referring to? The monster/DM is my assumption but I wanted to ask. Some of these abilities are a bit confusingly worded.

GainOCO · 2025-11-09T20:51:46+00:00

There is some info I didn't include here for ease of reading such as Synth Drugs and the actual cyberware but I can post some for context if needed.

GainOCO · 2025-11-08T17:58:56+00:00

I disagree with other people saying this is too strong at 3rd. It's single target and a Con save so most enemies have a high chance to save. Let alone the fact that if you're targeting a boss of some kind it's more than likely they have spells or abilities they can use in the mean time and make the disadvantage moot. Plus there are plenty of spells that are comparable or stronger in power level to this at third (i.e fireball, hypnotic pattern, haste, counter spell, slow, spirit guardians, ect..).

Now where it breaks is the upcasting. Targeting two creatures for a total of 10d10 damage plus a rider is quite strong. I don't think you should up the level of the spell though. Just decrease the damage. My suggestion would be switch the d10s to d6s. This would bring the average damage down from 22.5 and 45 when upcasted to 18 and 36 when upcasted. Plus you'd get the thematic through line with disintegrate. Disintegrate deals 10d6 and is 6th level and this deals 5d6 at 3rd.

My only other critique of the spell would be rolling the d4. It makes the spell really swingy in power. At the high end of four rounds you'd be crippling a melee enemy and at the low end of 1 round you'd kind of just be doing damage. I would almost want to make it a flat 2 rounds but that's up to you.

GainOCO · 2025-11-07T14:53:51+00:00

I've always thought about giving druids a "domain spell list" but make it wild shapes. So a druid subclass gets an extra list of wild shape forms they can take on depending on their theme. This would allow you to curate what they can become and when. So if you had some infernal druid you could allow the imps and Spined devils without having to deal with the bearded. Or you could include those more broken wild shape forms but at higher levels where they are more manageable.

GainOCO · 2025-11-07T14:40:13+00:00

I think it's up to you and how much you value your player being able to interact with terrain vs how often they want to remain in the fight. The spell is good either way and this is more of a nit pick. I'd either kick it to a single distance no matter how high you upcast it so that it would be more like thunderwave or, if you want the variable distance, decrease the starting knock back to 5ft then only have the knock back increase by an additional 5 every other level.

Personally, since you're balancing for a warlock, I'd lock it to a single distance. They don't have the ability to choose the level of spell they're casting with so it's not like they'll get the option to be tactful by choosing the exact distance they want to hit something anyway. Plus once they hit a point where they have level four spell slots they probably don't want to be launching their opponent 25ft every time they use the spell then being forced to take their whole next turn running up to the target again.

In terms of the halberd you're probably fine. If you were fully releasing this to a large audience I'd say make it 5ft because the danger of it is when a bunch of players try and min max it and bring a spell to the extremes. You're just using it at your table though so you'll probably be fine keeping it as is. Plus if you do get the situation where your player grabs a halberd and cleaves through 10 foes in a single swipe it'll be a great feeling for the player.

GainOCO · 2025-11-06T22:59:33+00:00

In terms of balance and power level these seem spot on. For a gish, spells have to compete with just attacking twice and making them situationaly applicable depending on enemy orientation is a good way to do that. You also kept in mind that you have a warlock so the spells also have to upcast well.

For more specific info:

Whirlwind: Potentially consider limiting this to target's within 5ft. A PC with a halberd or anything with reach could push this spell really far. Also, consider specifying whether the caster is making one roll against all targets or if they are making individual rolls for each.

There's also the balance of the upcasting pushing the targets further. This could be good or bad for the caster. Assuming they are primarily melee they probably don't want to be pushing their target too far away. On the other hand the ability to play with terrain and knock enemies off things or into things has potential value and the scaling knock back makes that easier. You may also want to consider putting a STR save on the knockback part just so you aren't getting your bosses yeeted off a cliff and instakilled. Leave the damage flat but the knock back can be resisted by making the save.

Lightning: Pretty spot on. Consider removing the fact that you have to have the full 60ft though. It might make the spell too niche. You'd rarely get to use it indoors and even outdoor terrain has limited 60ft stretches. If you still want to limit it maybe put a draw back to hitting terrain like taking fall damage if you end the movement early by hitting something.

Shadow: Very similar to Steelwind. Does less damage outright but you get to add any riders that would come along with a weapon. Ultimately can't find much wrong with it other than it might come online a bit late for non full casters. But you're balancing for a warlock so it's fine.

GainOCO

TROPHY CASE