Destiny Expansion - The Book of Fate

It's here at last. If seven destinies weren't enough for you, get ready for a brand new destiny expansion. How many new destinies are we talking about? Did we double the full amount of destinies? No, we tripled the amount. That's right, fourteen new destinies are ready for the taking. Special thanks to Nehiel (Chad Weeks) for doing the lion's share of original design on this expansion and Carson Dougan for early feedback.

However, in order to help maintain our sanity we wrote the destinies to be as setting-neutral as possible; maintaining different versions of talents for multiple settings (people playing ponies, fallout equestria, classic fantasy, star wars and more all like to have separate flavor) takes a lot of time we could be using developing new content for the system. Plus, if we edit one thing in one handbook - we then need to go through all the other handbooks and edit it too; which multiplies the amount of time it takes to do updated by even more. So we're doing what we did for combat talents, at least for now. We're writing the basic descriptions and leaving the flavor up to you. I heartily encourage you to re-flavor abilities and descriptions to suit your character just as liberally as you do with combat talents. For example, the Dynamic Duo might be two very special someponies.

We can't wait to see what you come up with.

So, without further ado, enjoy the Book of Fate - Destiny Expansion.

two things the old ones are now all under powered and can you fix the race system please

tygerburningbright wrote:two things the old ones are now all under powered and can you fix the race system please

There is a balance to all the destinies. A strict one that Dan made sure I followed. They are not under powered.

One was. Level 10 features didn't used to be well-defined. We've got a much better understanding of them now. Self-Discovery had a less powerful Level 10 feature than others (and frankly its level 4 was a bit boring) so I tossed it a massive buff. =)

Here's the new version.

Self-Discovery
Multi-Disciplined
Your journey of self-discovery has brought you on many paths and you’ve tried your hand at many disciplines. You gain two additional utility talents.

Call to Adventure
A hint of purpose calls to you. It may or may not be your ultimate path, but it is one you will pursue for now. Gain the level 4 feature of a destiny of your choice.

Make My Own Fate
You have moved beyond the trappings of fate to forge your own destiny. Gain the level 7 features of three different destinies of your choice.

Oh sweet Celestia thank you these are amazing.

*Needs to make a shapeshifter character ASAP*

elfowlgirl wrote:Oh sweet Celestia thank you these are amazing.

*Needs to make a shapeshifter character ASAP*

*Hugs everyone who made it and his head asplodes in joy*

Okay, these are awesome. Incredibly, mind-bogglingly awesome. Looks like I'll have to rework my Destiny ideas from the ground up if I'll have any chance of measuring up to these...

Well, those are all pretty awesome. I especially liked the Morphling. Simple but, interesting.

Edit: Dynamic Duo is probably my second favorite just because of how interesting the mechanics for it are.

Do you think we could re-word Psychic Speaking so that it allows you to use persuasion as well? Since all Beguilers a lot of characters that would want that concept might likely have high Persuasion and don't necessarily have high Arcana?

Jason Shadow wrote:Okay, these are awesome. Incredibly, mind-bogglingly awesome. Looks like I'll have to rework my Destiny ideas from the ground up if I'll have any chance of measuring up to these...

Thanks a million. Chad (Nehiel), Carson and I put a lot of love into these. Particularly Chad. Great to hear people are loving them.

There's a lot of great buzz about them on skype too.

Ramsus wrote:Do you think we could re-word Psychic Speaking so that it allows you to use persuasion as well? Since all Beguilers a lot of characters that would want that concept might likely have high Persuasion and don't necessarily have high Arcana?

Possibly. Any suggestions?

And a discussion on how to break the Dynamic Duo.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

Ramsus wrote:Do you think we could re-word Psychic Speaking so that it allows you to use persuasion as well? Since all Beguilers a lot of characters that would want that concept might likely have high Persuasion and don't necessarily have high Arcana?

Possibly. Any suggestions?

lol, yeah I actually tried to re-word it nicely and, as always, I can never phrase things as nicely as you guys do.

Ramsus wrote:Do you think we could re-word Psychic Speaking so that it allows you to use persuasion as well? Since all Beguilers a lot of characters that would want that concept might likely have high Persuasion and don't necessarily have high Arcana?

I was actually just thinking that, too, as the destiny in general looks interesting for my aspiring supervillain character, but he has a much higher Persuasion than Arcana.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:Possibly. Any suggestions?

My immediate thought is to let the player use Persuasion in place of Arcana for some situations. But the flavor behind the destiny is clearly mind affecting, of which Persuasion almost always is, but Arcana seldom is.

Maybe instead of straight up persuasion, Psychic Speaking might act more like a hypnotic suggestion. You can use either Arcana or Persuasion, but in either case, a success introduces a thought or idea into the target's head without them being aware of where it came from.

That either/or option might work well.

All of these are pretty fantastic (especially vile villain ). A few notes though:

- "Flying fortress of fear" has a bunch grammar errors.

- the lvl10 of dynamic duo is a bit confusing: Your ally gets your lvl7 desitny feature, which is "we learn from each other", which they already benefit from due to the "sharing" nature of the talent / being partnered. I assume they gain another utility/trained skill to exchange amongst themselves? Or does the ally get to choose his own partner (or same one) to assign the extra sharing? It needs a bit of clarification / rewording.

- Considering the "epic" features that most of these destinies ultimately grant, will there be a rework/update of some of the handbook destinies? The "Explorer" and "Archmage" destinies seem pretty mundane/non-epic, considering the stuff all the other destinies can grant (immortality, fortresses, stardom, mastery over reality...). There's also a bit of similarity between the "Archmage" and "Spelljacker" destinies.

Zarhon wrote:Considering the "epic" features that most of these destinies ultimately grant, will there be a rework/update of some of the handbook destinies? The "Explorer" and "Archmage" destinies seem pretty mundane/non-epic, considering the stuff all the other destinies can grant (immortality, fortresses, stardom, mastery over reality...). There's also a bit of similarity between the "Archmage" and "Spelljacker" destinies.

The difference in Archmage and Spelljacker is more in the line of how they approach the arcane arts. The Spelljacker is like a game developer; they have an innate understanding of how magic works and are able to manipulate the actual fabric for magic to do what they want. The ArchMage is like a professional top tier player; they might not actually know how to code (ie manipulate the fabric of magic) but they are the best at using magic itself.

Mechanically there is no over-lap. One is focused on letting you hack into magical enchantments and the like while the other lets you preform powerful spells more easily. In the level 10 there is a little I suppose because both give you access to more magic points in a sense but the ArchMage's is more consistent compared to the Spelljacker.

As for the Explorer I am seriously wondering how
1) People don't think Indiana Jones is badass
2) How 3 natural 20's per day is at all a bad thing.

Mechanically everything is balanced. Where I think people are having issues is with the flavor because I spent alot of time making the flavor of the destinies in a the Book of Fate feel badass.

Yep, it's gotta be the flavor. We spent forever making the new destinies feel truly epic. However, the Explorer destiny is arguably one of the most powerful level 10 features of all. It's a perfect marriage between being extremely powerful (just succeed at things) and always being useful. Definitely going to want to add to the flavor of the old destinies so their awesomeness can shine. Also, one or two of the old ones is going to be redesigned. Very Best Friend's level 10 feature is *way* under the curve.

Looking good. Just a few minor things I'm questioning at first glance.:

1) Archlich: shouldn't enhancing Aura of Misery cost a magic point? Otherwise, you can just toggle it on at the start of the session, make allies immune to it and just make everything much more easier.

2) Planeshaper: having your own plane of existence is all fine and dandy but you cannot freely walk from and to your own plane. Something I feel you should be able to do at least at level 10 and keep the level 7 ability only if you want to bring others along with you. Considering you return to the point where you planeswalked away from, you cannot use this method to escape imprisonment or anything.

Other than that, I don't see a lot wrong with it before I have some time to take a closer look. But as other said before, maybe redesigning the old destinies might not be a bad idea if people find them a bit underwhelming compared to the new kids in town.

Good catch on the Lich aura. The immunity is supposed to have a time limit

I think maybe you should make Call to Adventure a bit stronger. You're going to be spending a lot more time with that feature than Make My Own Fate.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:Yep, it's gotta be the flavor. We spent forever making the new destinies feel truly epic. However, the Explorer destiny is arguably one of the most powerful level 10 features of all. It's a perfect marriage between being extremely powerful (just succeed at things) and always being useful. Definitely going to want to add to the flavor of the old destinies so their awesomeness can shine. Also, one or two of the old ones is going to be redesigned. Very Best Friend's level 10 feature is *way* under the curve.

The whole "three crits a day" utility seems like it would fit more with the "make my own fate" destiny, or a destiny centered around being a specialist at a single specific task (cutie mark destiny). Why is the lvl10 Explorer destiny restricted in regards to cutie mark criticals, though? It's hardly game-breaking, compared to some of the other destinies, and players having cutie marks isn't even guaranteed anymore with the genetics/racial expansions. If they really are that powerful (which they shouldn't be, if you're already allowed do to criticals at will: Cutie marks are restricted by their skill, plus even cutie mark crits or nat20's are allowed to fail if the DM decrees it), perhaps allow for a single cutie mark critical per session? I mean, Daring Do probably used a cutie mark critical to get out of that deathtrap, with only her hat.

And what about the lvl4 / lvl7 features of Explorer?

For the lvl4 one, Horizon Walker I admit is pretty good. It fits the "explorer in wilderness" flavor and can be very useful.

On the other hand, Secret Shelter has a flaw that makes it very limited when you actually need/want to use it: It's magic point cost.

Players are unlikely to use the shelter for anything other than to restore their dailies/magic point, avoiding sleep-time ambushes, or to ensure they don't starve/die of thirst. But at the point the players would actually need these utilities, the player is unlikely to have a magic point to actually spend on the shelter. And by the time he does get a magic point (from an extended rest, presumably without safety/food/drink), there's no point in making a shelter anymore (other than for free food/drink).

The talent costing a magic point doesn't make sense at all, considering what you gain from it (relative safety and survival necessities for a night) isn't worth the cost, compared to other destiny utilities. It's also one of the few utilities that actually cost a magic point now (The other two being Resurrection and Smile Smile Smile). None of the expansion destiny utilities cost magic points, despite doing much more impressive/magical/impossible things and/or being higher level.

Secret Shelter needs to be a daily/session limited. Magic points just force the player to hold onto magic points to be able to use it when it's needed.

As for the lvl7 destiny, it's a glorified freaky knowledge. You can literally get the same thing by taking Freaky knowledge yourself. It's non-unique, very underwhelming/weak (+5 bonus for something of that level?) and plain boring (most of the lvl7's give you some unique utility/ability/gimmick). It feels more like it should be a lvl4 destiny bonus.

Since none of the Book of Fate talents require magic points (instead having session/daily limits), shouldn't the old destinies have similar daily limits?

Ramsus wrote:I think maybe you should make Call to Adventure a bit stronger. You're going to be spending a lot more time with that feature than Make My Own Fate.

Yeah, that is totally true...

For fun: Two people with Dynamic Duo, using it on each other... If they hit level 10, they hyper-charge each other.

They would trade 4 of their 5 utilities (4 bonus utilities each), and all of their trained skills would cross over, +20 to all 4-8 skills effected (there is poor wording interaction between the level 7 and level 10 abilities), +8 on Aid Another checks, and any aid another gives +6 to each other.

That sounds like a pretty intimate but amazing Duo. Your average dice roll is going to be at +36.5, assuming none of your 9 utilities increase it, before you even calculate in bonuses. An Arcana-maxed would have 53.5 as their "average" roll, as long as their partner was there to support and cherish them. (Yay for Shining and Cadence!)

You may want to note that Dynamic Duo doesn't stack with Dynamic Duo, in summary, since those are (usually stacking) untyped bonuses.

Regarding the Vile Villain destiny: I don't see why anyone would ever take the "Clumsy" evil minion. Using him for any skill other than his "good" (+10) one has a 50% chance of failing on a DC15 skill check and literally can't roll high enough to pass any higher DC (unless he rolls a natural 20) so he's already gimped in that aspect.

Clumsy would, in addition to that, make him critically fail half of the time on every skill (including his "good" one!). Giving him a magic point in exchange seems pretty much pointless, especially since his critical failures are bound to give you a lot more grief than he ever does good, and a magic point can't change a critical failure.

I think it needs one of the following:
- A lot more magic points for the minion's personal use.
- Make the magic point(s) the minion has useable by his master (for utility costs and such).
- Reduce the clumsy minion's critical failure chance and/or make it not affect his +10 skill.
- Make the +10 skill have a 50% chance to critically succeed.
- Make his critical failures affect the minion AND ONLY the minion. The master or his party never get penalized or in trouble for the minion's clumsyness.
- Have clumsy minions replaceable within a day (or an hour). They'll get wiped out like flies.

I think the evil minion being replaced after a week is a tad too long as well: You'd be spending a lot of sessions without that minion, if not the whole campaign, if events proceed slowly / there aren't many timeskips between sessions. Maybe add an option to revive minions with average level heal checks, or for magic points?