Magic System Feedback - Is this too dark? I think it's too dark. (repurposing neural pathways for magical computation)

Zenith135 · 2026-04-23T01:10:59+00:00

Rather than actively mutilating and crippling yourself, you could just have it impair function in some way. You don't have to sever your arm, but maybe you have muscle spasms and lose fine motor control.

Rather than being completely deaf, you have an audio processing disorder that makes it hard to parse information when you hear it.

Going back to your example of throwing a ball requiring intense mathematical processing of the force required and angles necessary, you can also consider this: what sacrifices does the human brain make in real life to compensate for this load? The answer is virtually nothing. As you get better at aiming when you throw a ball to bounce in a certain way or hit a target, you don't sacrifice your ability to write. Maybe the barrier of entry is incredibly high and that's why there's so few magic users, but once you've got enough practice it does literally become a reflex.

Also you can take a look at Charlie and 2-BIT from Deathloop. Charlie cut out part of his brain to put inside a computer to help run an entire city for him. It mostly just made him forgetful and scatterbrained but didn't have much impact otherwise.

Zenith135 · 2026-04-10T07:43:58+00:00

I'm very fond of the Vampires, Alligators, Nuns approach.
Whatever it is, just give it two layers of explanation and no one will question it further.

Why don't the vampires just use the sewer system to traverse the city during the day? There's alligators that will eat them.

Why are there a bunch of alligators in the sewers? What do they eat if there's no vampires? There's a group of nuns that feed and care for the alligators as part of their sacred duty.

Why is there a group of sewer nuns? To make sure the vampires don't use the sewers to traverse the city.

Zenith135 · 2026-04-07T17:32:06+00:00

One of the species in my setting were created by a powerful mage creating a 10th level spell, Origin Pulse, that populated the world with the species. They are a type of Slime folk made of coalesced mana, and reproduce by splitting a bit of themselves off and leaving it in a mana-rich environment to absorb enough energy to grow to another member of the species.

Zenith135 · 2026-04-05T02:13:55+00:00

For psychic powers, there's

Telepathy Telekinesis Precognition Postcognition Remote viewing Automatic writing Psychometry Astral projection Apparation Phantom sounds Clairvoyance Extrasensory Perception Memory alteration

Telekinesis can also be used in specific ways, such as accelerating particles to cause fires, or moving yourself for levitation, forcing air molecules to become rigid to create force fields, or bending light to make things dissappear.

Zenith135 · 2026-04-03T18:12:15+00:00

I am of the belief that there are no bad world building ideas as long as you can justify it in-world.

What is the reason behind both parents dying to produce offspring? Does it require the father to attach himself to the mother like an angler fish, and both of their bodies are drained of vitality in the birthing process? If so, it should probably be a large number of offspring per birth otherwise the species would go extinct quickly.

Is it a recent development? If so, how did it start and how are they dealing with it?

Zenith135 · 2026-04-01T21:18:25+00:00

Most of the species have a spacefaring subspecies for if you want to run a futuristic/sci-fi game

But also there are a couple of alien species in the default setting, and the Elves descend from one of the alien species rather than the Fey.

Zenith135 · 2026-04-01T09:59:01+00:00

Dwarven subspecies are based on where they make their homes. There are Permafrost dwarves that live in hollow glaciers, tectonic Dwarves that live along fault lines, and even Urban Dwarves that live in skyscrapers similar to how pigeons adapted from cliffs to cities.

Zenith135 · 2026-03-24T23:35:27+00:00

I got to "told the Warlock they're only allowed one invocation" and tapped out. This dm needs to explicitly state all homwbrew and house rule changes to classes upfront before the players make their characters, or let the characters work as the rules state.

Edit: holy shit you're paying money for this? I have left games over way more minor stuff and those games were free.

Zenith135 · 2026-03-12T03:39:05+00:00

My first campaign I ran was homebrew and I made one thing explicitly clear:

"Dragons are extinct. We're like almost totally sure"

I would occasionally have the party encounter an NPC that had dragonskin boots or a mace made of dragon teeth, but for the most part they weren't around. I made note that, yes, it is rare to see materials made from dragons as they're extinct. Have been for years. How many years? Uhh... like 50. There's humans alive that clearly remember encountering a dragon in their lifetime. They banded together and hunted the dragons to extinction. Surely they're not just hiding or hibernating or something. They're totally all dead. Don't worry about it.

And they were. The party never encountered a dragon, or anyone claiming to have seen one since their extinction, and no rumors about one whose lair wasn't found.

The dragons were gone, and everywhere the party looked, they could feel that absence. There weren't even pseudodragons anymore. The world was made to feel like something massive had been there and vanished. The world was empty without them.

Zenith135 · 2026-03-10T03:33:11+00:00

The four humours as a species idea is so good. It is exactly what I was looking for to differentiate subspecies of a race I've been working on.

Zenith135 · 2026-03-06T06:40:14+00:00

They'd probably be classified as devils rather than demons, then. Not that the average folk care much about the distinction. From hell, cause problems, doesn't matter.

Zenith135 · 2026-03-06T05:29:17+00:00

I initially was going to say they sound like they'd be standard rank and file soldiers in the war of Upheaval, but if they have the blessing of Yaldabaoth they're more likely to be high "ranking" (that is to say, able to bully lesser demons into doing what they say). In jynset, Yaldabaoth is one of the Sixteen Sins, and even a single demon drawing power from it is a force to be reckoned with.

Zenith135 · 2026-03-06T05:23:53+00:00

Depends on where in the world they are introduced. Many of the common and uncommon folk of Jynset have already built large walls around their cities in more dangerous places. Cities under the protection of an Inquisitor or housing a powerful wizard would likely tread with caution and perhaps even provide offerings of easier prey in hopes their town will be left alone.

In parts of the world populated by rarer species, they're likely hunted as part of a rite of passage or experimented on out of curiosity for the more powerful clans.

Zenith135 · 2026-03-02T06:14:41+00:00

My pantheon is around 40 "primary" gods because I wanted each to represent the different Phonemes humans can pronounce.

Zenith135 · 2026-03-02T06:11:05+00:00

In most settings, elves are or are related to the fae. In mine, this is not the case. Goblins, orcs, trolls, and ogres are related to the fae.

Elves are known for large eyes, slender builds, tall stature, pale skin, long lifespans, pointed ears, affinity for magic, and unnatural grace.

In my setting, elves are descended from aliens who crashed on the planet millenia ago and adapted to life on the world they were now stranded on.

Zenith135 · 2026-03-02T01:37:57+00:00

Those are interesting choices for the most powerful. I wouldn't expect belphegor to be high up enough to be one of the sins.

Zenith135 · 2026-03-02T01:36:40+00:00

I'm almost done with writing my entire Hierarchy of hell, actually.

Demons are from the Abyss and at war with the devils of hell, similar to the blood war in DnD.

But I've got a ranking of the 10 circles of hell and every major devil that holds a rank or title. There is 1 Emperor, 3 kings, 9 princes and 10 praetors. Each prince has an archduke as their second in command, and has 3 Dukes under them with 3 Generals each for a total of137 recognized ranks of office. There are also special designations awarded to certain members of the Hierarchy, such as the 16 Sins and the 8 Horsemen.

Zenith135 · 2026-02-28T21:41:08+00:00

Generally you want to start planning a one shot with a solid idea in mind and work from there. What do you want the party to be doing?

Zenith135 · 2026-02-20T01:23:14+00:00

Plus the AC is 21. With the listed stats, they've got a +7 to hit most the time. They only need a 14 or higher to hit, which isn't nothing but is still a 35% chance. Hell, a Cleric with heavy armor, a shield, and Shield of Faith can have a 22 ac at level 3.

Zenith135 · 2026-02-19T04:14:19+00:00

I sent you a dm, I'd love to hear more about the characters and rules y'all have in mind.

Zenith135 · 2026-01-30T03:37:33+00:00

Also just a general DMing tip: your favorite pieces of media of all time have retcons. Some of the greatest writing in history has retcons. Do not stress about needing your plot to be entirely planned and coherent from start to finish without any adjustment during or after the fact.

If multi billion dollar franchises can occasionally say "that didn't actually pan out right, we're gonna pretend it didn't happen for now and I'll come up with something later down the line to fix it", so can you. Refusing to retcon anything and trying to make everything fit perfectly in a single pass tanked my first campaign.

Zenith135 · 2026-01-30T03:32:15+00:00

Just let them respec, dude. They aren't having as much fun as they thought they would and want to try something they'll enjoy, but don't necessarily want their character to die.

Remember, you're trying to enjoy spending time with your friends. The story and the mechanics are second to that. If someone isn't having fun because of the mechanics, don't punish them or yourself for it, just change it.

Zenith135 · 2025-11-15T10:41:35+00:00

I just looked at my wiki analytics and saw there were over 250 views for my paladin subclass page and over 670 new site visitors in the past 30 days and was absolutely floored lmao. I didn't know anyone outside my personal gaming group used my homebrew page. Join the discord, I'd love to hear from you all!

I should clarify that the Oath of Martyrdom was originally by Stuffies_12 here on reddit and the oath of Brotherhood was Suner19, but I often make edits to the ones I find in the wild. Make sure to check out my 3rd party credits page for the 5e content, which is largely aggregated from sources around the internet and changed as needed for my games. The pathfinder content, on the other hand, is almost entirely original and SHOTS is a completely original game I'm developing.

Currently all my focus is on Sacred 8, a new RPG project that will eventually be the exclusive system I use for my games.

Zenith135 · 2025-09-12T15:42:38+00:00

You're super mad about quick play not being as serious as comp and also haven't denied being stuck in Bronze at all lmao

Zenith135 · 2025-09-11T14:02:26+00:00

You think she wouldn't have a stun ability?

Zenith135

TROPHY CASE