Special abilities are a collection of mechanical or roleplaying elements that allow a class to accomplish some task in a unique manner. They’re also the true heart and soul of the class. If you have the best fluff writing in the world but no special game mechanics to back that fluff up, you have failed as a designer. After all, why take a class if all it provides is some roleplaying fluff. You can do that without designing a prestige class.
You’re going to want special abilities that cannot be duplicated via base classes or other means (unless this is a hybrid class, in which case you’re giving a base class something it doesn’t normally obtain). They should be clear, concise, and provide flavor and fun in combat or outside of combat.
Basic Principles
Special abilities are one of the hardest things about a class to design. There is no magic formula or process beyond innate talent and learned skill. This article isn’t going to give you the answers to what’s a balanced special ability or really how to even write them. There are simply too many different special abilities to make this practical or even possible. Instead I’m going to try and give you the tools to get your special abilities in the ballpark. Once you have rough ideas you can get feedback via play testing and the community to fine-tune them.
This is a hard process and not something you’re going to master overnight. This is also the reason that designers get paid to design classes – it’s a hard skill to learn and master. You’ll have to realize that you’re going to have missteps and badly designed special abilities in the beginning. That’s fine; it’s a learning process and you can really only learn what to do with experience.
Extraordinary Abilities
The most common type of special ability is more than likely the extraordinary ability. At its heart, an extraordinary ability is the most mundane of special abilities. A dangerous sword maneuver learned from an ancient master, the leap of the flying mantis, or the dance of whirling death might all be extraordinary abilities. Basically anything that could be learned by a human in good physical condition through mundane practice is an extraordinary ability.
Extraordinary abilities are also the default chose for special abilities. If it isn’t obviously magical or supernatural in origin, it’s probably an extraordinary ability. If you can’t decide where a special ability falls in the three categories, it’s more than likely an extraordinary ability.
More tongue in check, Batman has obviously extraordinary abilities. He doesn’t have super powers (which would be supernatural abilities) or use magical gizmos or cast spells (which would be spell-like abilities) so all of his tricks are extraordinary.
Spell-Like Abilities
Spell-like abilities are usually the least frequently used type of ability. If you want to give a class only a small handful of spells but don’t actually want to make it a spellcasting class, spell-like abilities are your answer. If members of your class can sheath themselves in stone, meld stone into objects, and then make magical sling stones, you’d want three spell-like abilities: stone skin, stone shape, and magic stone, respectively.
The important thing to remember is that spell-like abilities have slightly different rules than normal spells. Thus they can be useful for classes that only have one or two little tricks that just happen to be duplicated by already existing spells. That’s why they’re handy shorthand; if you know that this class can read minds, why not just give them detect thoughts as a spell-like ability and be done with it? You know the rules are already balanced, so you just have to determine when they get the ability and how often it works.
You’ll probably find that you use spell-like abilities the least. They tend to be more for flavor and less for actual power. If you’re going to be giving more than 4 or 5 spell-like abilities, you should just give the class some manner of spellcasting progression with a limited spell list.
I prefer to reserve spell-like abilities for non-spellcasting classes, as spellcasting classes find less value in getting one or two spell-like abilities a day. But for a class based on the fighter, the ability to cast magic weapon or haste would be considered a huge boon.
To continue the superhero analogy, Doctor Fate probably has a few spell-like abilities, as he’s a magician. Superman wouldn’t have any supernatural abilities, though; his are all supernatural.
Supernatural Abilities
Supernatural abilities are the medium ground between extraordinary and spell-like abilities. They are used to represent tricks that are clearly beyond the bounds of a normal human but are not actually derived from spell power. Thus they have some of the properties of both other abilities.
If you want your class to be able to duplicate a spell effect that is always on, a supernatural ability is probably what you want. It’s also useful for things that are clearly fantastic but under the power of earth-shattering magic.
When you’ve designed an ability that doesn’t quite fit into an extraordinary ability (such as the ability to jump 50 feet) but you feel isn’t represented with magical training, the supernatural ability is what you want. I generally find that you’ll use supernatural abilities almost as often as extraordinary abilities.
Since I’ve been working with the superhero analogy (and already alluded to it above), Superman is your prime example of supernatural abilities. He doesn’t get his great strength and flying and the like from the sun, but he sure didn’t get it through training. Thus they’d be supernatural abilities.
Other Abilities
Obviously classes have more than just supernatural, spell-like, and extraordinary abilities. Since the rest of the abilities are so widely varied I just lump them all together in this category. Things that some classes gain are bonus feats, skill bonuses, and other such little mechanical benefits. The sky is really the limit here, though I generally like to stick to bonus feats, skill bonuses, and other mundane enhancements.
However, I will caution against providing bonus feats and flat bonuses to skills. You can generally gain these abilities normally, so it’s not a good reason to add them to a class. The big exception is when a class should generally have a feat that most players avoid taken due to its poor usability. Feats like Combat Casting, Skill Focus, and other feats of that nature are often good bonus feats. Generally these are just little extras, something you can use to give the class at least something on an otherwise dead level.
Roleplaying Bonuses
There is one other type of special ability you can grant a prestige class; non-tangible roleplaying style benefits. These can really be just about anything and should generally be used to add flavor to a class. They also shouldn’t be considered in the balance of the class, unless the roleplaying benefit nets tangible game benefits (such as the ability to copy spells into your spellbook for free or requisition free magical weapons).
In general fun roleplaying bonuses are an excellent way to give a bit of extra oomph to a class and a clear reason to make it valuable in the game world. You can also tie roleplaying benefits to mechanical benefits if you so wish. Perhaps members of the Royal Herbologists also gain a bonus on Diplomacy checks when interesting with other sages.
Just be careful that roleplaying benefits aren’t the only thing your class gains. Otherwise you’d be better off using a feat or the organization rules. Roleplaying bonuses should be little extras on top of everything else, not the main event.
Conclusion
This should give you a good overview of the various types of special abilities that we’ll be discussing next week (in my own rambling manner). To get in a bit of practice for next months article, you might consider just making up a few abilities and trying to figure out what category they fall under. Don’t worry, this is just the first part of special abilities; we’ll be discussing how to actually design them next month. Until then, good luck and happy gaming.
