More variants for Psionics of Lore

Originally, I was going to only have one variant for each psionic class. However, I said "hell to it" and decided to have 5 for each, giving each class in B&T 5 variants to choose from. The list, along with a brief description, is as follows

Warmind

Ardent- The ardent focuses more on improving their defense while in their psychic trance than improving their offense. The trance is basically my replacement to the bonus combat feats the warmind would get in 3.5

Crystal Warrior- This warmind specializes in drawing psionic power from crystals, as well as using crystals as weapons.

Relativist- The relativist is a master of manipulating gravity, able to move himself and others at his whim.

Blur- Most warminds are bastions of power, but the blur is a quick and agile brute.

Godmind- These champions release an aura of divinity, praising their gods while also ravaging brains.

Psion

Chrono- The chrono can manipulate time, both stopping it and speeding it up.

Enthraller- Enthrallers are controllers of mind and enslaves of will.

Erudite- Erudites have managed to find their way around having a psionic discipline, but finding powers is much harder for them

Cerebremancer- Cerebremancers are masters of both psionics and magic

Pyrokineticist- The pyrokineticist is a master of flame and conflagration, burning all in his path.

Soulknife

Soulbow- Instead of slashing with psionic blades, soulbows attack with psionic crossbows and longbows.

Soulfists- Soulfists wrap their very hands in psionic energy, punching holes through walls and minds

Slayer- Slayers make it their mission to seek out and kill evil abberations all across the world.

Warper- Warpers have molecular instability, which they can exploit by warping short distances around the battlefield.

Psywall- Psywalls can use their psionic energy to create shields in addition to their weapons, both to protect themselves and their allies.

Wilder

Lurk- Lurks are psionic thieves who sneak around, using their psionics to best open up areas for backstabs.

Raver- Ravers not only lose control of their minds when they manifest powers, but they can also lose control of their bodies.

Savage- The savage is psionically in touch with nature in the entire world, using his mind to alter nature itself.

Mindeater- Mindeaters can drain others of their mental faculties, boosting themselves in return.

Placid- Placids actually live in pools of tranquility; they do not lose control, they cause others to.



Now to actually write the mechanics for these! Uh oh

Psionics of Lore Update

I only have to write the Artifacts for psionic items and a few psionic monsters, and then I am done with the basic draft of of Psionics of Lore! Wooooooooooo. I am going to write an introduction about what psionics are and how to introduce them into your campaign, but besides that, the long road is almost over! Stay tuned!

The Deed is Done

I am proud to say I have finished writing out the psionic powers for Psionics of Lore! It's not all the powers from the Expanded Psionics Handbook, simply because some did not conform to B&T rules. But either way, they are 100% done. What's next? After a short break, psionic items! Then, formatting, proofreading and hopefully some art.

Also, Races of Lore is done! However, I am trying to get a piece of art with all the races. If I don't get it soon, I'll just send it off to Mr. Stater to format, and then I'll post a link!

I've also been considering opening up a store on DriveThruRPG to the Lore series, probably for cheap as free! I'm on the fence, but I'll let you know for sure.

Anyway, have a merry Christmas, you filthy animals.

Races of Lore Coming Soon

So, with a little suggestion from RPG.net, I've reformatted Races of Lore. Furthermore, this reformat has allowed me to write up all the races.

Originally, each race had about 7 paragraphs describing it. I talked about the physical chracteristics, personalities, and cultural traditions. However, some RPG.net user told me that I shouldn't think in "monocultures", such that every Tengu shared exactly the same culture. He was right, and it basically cut out around 2/3rds of my writing.

Further, in Blood & Treasure, the races aren't totally described, and I think the reason is so that people can interpret the races between GMs. I decided to do that, further reducing the word count.

Now, races are basically physical descriptions and a little bit about personalities. After that, its just statistics to play the race. I have to do a bit of editing, and hopefully John Stater will lay it out again in a similar fashion like he did with Heroes of Lore. So if all goes according to plan, Races of Lore will come out soon, possibly even within the month! Hope you guys are excited as I am.

Races and Classes for Psionics of Lore are finished!

Oh man! They are fully written up and stated, which is great. The races include Maenads, Kith-Yang (renamed githerzai) and half-dwarves (also known as muls). I also have the psionic feats planned out, and I have written out the psionic mechanics section. That leaves me with the following:

1. Write out the feats

2. Finish the powers (I am currently on the Ps)

3. Assemble the final power lists

4. Write out the psionic items

5. Write out the psionic monsters (only a few, I'm only very concerned about the astral concert).

Getting closer and closer! I'm pretty stoked

UPDATE: The feats are now done! Yay!

Astorian Map

I thought I'd give you all a little treat; I've just finished the map for my personal setting, Astoria. This is the setting that will be detailed in the World of Lore supplement, which probably won't come for a while. Please enjoy and give me some feedback.

Small Thing Coming Soon

Just thought I'd let you know that soon I'll be releasing a small and optional document for my Heroes of Lore companion.

A few months after the fact, I'm pulling a George Lucas and doing some re-edits. Mostly all of these changes have a basis. I only really have four I have problems with; the rest are still pretty good.

1. Pactforger - Kind of like a 4e Warlock. Replaces the Psionicist because I am writing the Psionics of Lore supplement.
2. Wild Mage - Relic from 2e. Replaces the Scholar because the Scholar was just really boring in my eyes. Wild Mage is much more interesting and unique.
3. Small update on Shaman text. Basically describes that they use their powers through a spirit animal, but that's it. This was always the intention, it was just never really clear.
4. Cultist - Update on mechanics and flavor. Upon further review, I realized the Cultist was basically like my Inquisitor variant except with more spells. Now the Cultist can inherently cast some pretty potent spells at low level (Bolt of Glory or Unholy Smite), making them somewhat like the Invoker of 4e.

I'm not releasing a whole new document, but rather a companion document. Thus, if you really like the old Scholar and Cultist, you can keep them in your game. It's coming out probably extremely soon.

Small Updated on Releases

So, as you know I currently have a few projects going on. They are

1. Pulpwood!
2. Races of Lore
3. Psionics of Lore
4. World of Lore

Sadly, Pulpwood! is on the backburner because school makes it hard to write fully fledged games. Supplements are much easier to do, and I can polish them off in a few weeks/a month or two.

Not too long ago, I said I would release Psionics of Lore before Races of Lore because it seemed like a much easier project. This was before I decided to convert most of the powers present in 3.5's Expanded Psionics Handbook. I'm on the Es right now, but it is long and tedious work.

On the other hand, all the mechanics for Races of Lore are done. It's just a matter of writing out all the background for the races.

World of Lore is in its infant stages, as I am still developing the setting and fleshing it out. I have some broad strokes, but now I need to get down to specifics.

So, what can you expect from these supplements?

Races of Lore - 12 new races to fill your fantasy game of choice with. From the aquatic Tuloids to the plant-like Spriggans, from the insectile Trinoks to the crystalline Welgs, these races will color your world and provide fair and balanced options for players.

Psionics of Lore - This is gonna be a big one. 3 psionic races (the half-dwarves, maenads and the kith-yang), 4 psionic classes with variants (the wilder, warmind, psion and soulknife), a giant list of over 200 psionic powers and a bevy of new psionic items to fill your campaign with.

World of Lore - My own high fantasy setting, Astoria. Enter a world inherited from ancient races after a mysterious war sent giant constructs ravaging across the lands. Discover the mysteries of the crysts, gigants and monoliths as you plunge through ancient tombs filled with strange magical technology, deal with courts full of lizardmen nobles and try to forge a new civilization on the backs of the old one.

Hope you guys are excited! I am.

Another Replacement Variant and Playing 4e with B&T

Intro
So I've been looking into D&D 4e for a while. It's nearing the end of its lifespan, and while it remains endearing in some aspects, there are just other aspects I can't wrap my head around. I really favor the classes and races, but I don't want to go through learning all these new things just to play a new edition.

So I decided "Why don't I find an easy way to take the main tropes of 4e and transfer them over to Blood and Treasure?" And I've basically been passively doing it ever since I wrote Heroes of Lore.

Classes
Here is the list of classes in 4th edition and B&T's equivalent, either in terms of pure class or as a variant. These include any classes from Dark Sun, Eberron and Forgotten Realms.

Ardent = Wilder (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Avenger = Inquisitor (assassin variant)
Barbarian
Bard
Battlemind = Warmind (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Cleric
Druid
Fighter
Invoker = Cultist (Cleric variant)
Monk
Paladin
Psion = Psion (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Ranger
Rogue
Runepriest = Runecaster (barbarian variant)
Shaman = Shaman (druid variant)
Seeker = Scout (thief variant, original B&T)
Sorcerer
Warden = Warden (ranger variant)
Warlord = Marshal (fighter variant)
Wizard
Artificer = Artificer (MU variant)
Assassin
Swordmage = Warlock (sorcerer variant)

The only thing missing is the warlock, which I have a quick variant for here. The warlock is a Magic-User variant, and if I could re-write Heroes of Lore, I'd replace the Scholar with this variant. Since "warlock" is already taken as a sorcerer variant, let's call the variant a pactforger.

Pactforger - new variant

The pactforger does not get his magic from study or by being born with it. Instead, a pactforger establishes an agreement with a magical creature in order to gain some of their magic. The pact could be formed with celestials, infernals, elementals, creatures from beyond the veil, dragons, fey or any other inherently magical creature. The pact is almost never spoken of, especially in terms of what the pactforger offered for his power.

A pactforger can inherently cast bestow curse once a day by tapping in to the primal bond of their eldritch pact.

Races

Further, you can easily emulate mostly all "core" races as well. These are races from the 3 Player's Handbooks and the setting books for 4e's three settings.

Dragonborn - Taninim (Coming soon in Races of Lore)
Dwarf
Eladrin - Gray Elf
Elf
Half-Elf
Halfling
Human
Tiefling
Deva - Aasimar
Gnome
Goliath - Juggernaut
Half-Orc
Shifter - Ferals (Coming soon in Races of Lore)
Githzerai - Kith-Yang (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Minotaur
Shardmind - Welgs (Coming soon in Races of Lore)
Wilden - Spriggan (Coming soon in Races of Lore)
Mul - Half-dwarf (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Thri-Kreen - Trinoks (Coming soon in Races of Lore)
Kalashtar - Maenads (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Warforged - Automotons
Changeling - Doppelgangers
Drow - Drow
Genasi - Primals (Coming soon in Races of Lore)

Now some of these aren't exact. The Trinok is not exactly like a Thri-kreen, but it is my answer to the classic  ant-man. If I ran Dark Sun with B&T, I'd use the Trinok. The same goes for Maenads and Kalashtars, but their case is a little different. Though they were separate races once upon a time, they both share a very similar theme and even physical appearance, so I decided to mash them together. If you'd rather have Kalashtars as a separate race, it would be pretty simple to adapt.

End

So that's really the short answer to my quest for 4th Edition on B&T. Seems easily doable, and I hope you guys can take a couple cues from it.

A Replacement Variant for B&T

Since I am now writing Psionics of Lore, I realize that the Psionicist variant for the Sorcerer in my Heroes of Lore book has no real place any longer. It is fine if you want to have psionics play a minor role in your game world, but I feel like I am kind of cheating you out of a variant.

So to make it up to you, I decided to make a new variant to replace the Psionicist, and it's a relic from AD&D 2nd edition: the Wild Mage.

I mostly did it in honor of the release of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, which features a brand new Wild Mage character.


Wild Mage

Wild Mages tap in to pure, unbridled and primal magic. Far beyond the energy of elemental magic, wild magic is unstable, chaotic and random as it lies in its constant state of imbalance. Wild Mages try to harness this chaos, usually leading them to be quite strange and random in personality.

Wild Mages get one less spell per level. Instead, they can tap into the primal wild magic three times a day. When they access wild magic, they choose a spell and then roll a d20. The result of the roll determines at what effective level the spell was cast. For example, if a 5th level Wild Mage casts a spell and rolled a 20, the Wild Mage would effectively be considered level 7 for purposes of determining spell effects and damage. The table below details the level modification

1-4          -2
5-8          -1
9-12          0
13-16 +1
17-20 +2


The drawback to this is that every time a Wild Mage uses one of her taps, she must make a Will save. If she fails, she must roll on the Wild Magic table, located on p. 21 of the Treasure Keeper's Tome.