|
Sometimes writers--both old and new--stall once the idea hits. You might not
know how to begin at all because you haven't done it before. You might know
what you want to say but not how to set it down. You might have good ideas
about what to write and how to write it but not who you want to write it
for.
A good answer for all of these concerns is what do the readers want?
If you can provide a good answer for that question, you'll be able to solve
most of your content-related questions in short answer. Know what the
readers want, and you write material that publishers want.
This article uses D20 concepts for its example. If you're not familiar with
the d20 rules, this article won't make as much sense.
An Idea
Begin with a thought. I recently began reading Complete Mage from Wizards
of the Coast more seriously than the brief glimpse I gave it when it came
out a few months ago. The reserve feats from that book beg for expansion.
To summarize the reserve feat, a spellcaster gains a moderate magical
ability (such as creating a cone of fire) as long as the spellcaster has a
higher-level spell prepared. If you have a 5th level spell prepared, you
can generate a spell-like effect comparable to a 3rd-level spell. Once you
no longer have any spells that meet the prerequisite prepared, you lose the
ability.
Each feat also include a secondary ability; all of the examples in Complete
Mage seemed to grant the spellcaster +1 spellcaster level with spells themed
to the feat. In boringly thorough fashion, the book seems to describe one
feat for each descriptor, so there are spells for lightning, cold, fire,
acid, etc.
The Reader's Needs
Not all players like to play wizards. If you want to make an article out of
adding new reserve feats, you have to make the feats available to
non-wizards. How? Barbarians, for example, don't prepare spells, so they
can't meet a prerequisite of having a spell prepared. They do rage, though.
A reserve feat that requires the ability to rage could provide a primary and
secondary benefit similar to the ones for spellcasters. Let's begin with
one of these feats and see how it stacks up. Where to start?
The rage ability currently grants a bonus to Strength, Constitution, and
Will saves. It applies a penalty to AC. It limits the actions a character
can take during combat. It fatigues the user after it ends. Current game
mechanics already remove the fatigue, so that's not a direction we want this
feat to go.
The metagame idea behind the reserve feats is to allow the spellcaster the
ability to take more actions during combat. Typically, a wizard player
casts a few spells outside of combat, a spell or two during combat, and has
little punch during combat. After a couple of flashy spells, he's done.
The ability to generate continuous warlock-type blasts is intended to give
the player something to do. We'll keep that in mind as we design our
non-spellcasting reserve feats.
RAGE FEAT (that's a placeholder name; we'll change it later)
Flavor text goes here.
Prerequisite: Ability to rage
Benefit:
For article-writing purposes, I usually draft a template like this, copy it
to the bottom of the article and then copy & paste as I need it throughout
the writing. Let's paste the template and write in a tentative couple of
abilities.
RAGE FEAT
Flavor text goes here.
Prerequisite: Ability to rage
Benefit: As long as you have not used all of your rage uses for the
day, you can choose to gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls and suffer a -2 AC
penalty as if you had charged whenever you move more than 5 feet before
attacking.
As a secondary benefit, you gain a +1 competence bonus to oppose
trip attempts, disarm attempts and bull rush attempts.
The first ability encourages maneuver in combat. Players seem to prefer the
constant jockeying for position during combat, taking advantage of terrain
and numbers to gain a tactical advantage. It's far more exciting than two
fighters standing toe to toe and trading die rolls.
For the secondary ability, I look for a benefit analogous to the wizard's +1
spellcaster level. The barbarian's rage ability isn't dependent upon level,
so an effective +1 character level doesn't mean much. I didn't want to
increase the rage benefit with this low-level feat, either.
As an idea for other directions to go with barbarians, you might concentrate
on another of the class's aspects: increased movement rate, for example,
hardiness, damage reduction, or outdoor survival.
Look also at removing liabilities. The barbarian suffers an Armor Class
penalty while raging. Adding a Dexterity bonus while raging can effectively
reduce or remove that penalty. Such a bonus should be a secondary bonus for
this type of feat, because it doesn't give the character a new combat
option, which should be the purpose of the main ability.
Once you have the crunchy details, add the flavor text and come up with a
final name for the feat. You might have a name already picked out and allow
the name to suggest the ability; that's fine, too. One thing that I try to
do is come up with names that aren't merely descriptive. The world does not
need more Improved This or Greater That feats. The feat name should be as
evocative as the ability is attractive to the player.
Follow this feat with the placeholders Greater Rage Feat and Mighty Rage
Feat. That allows three feats for the barbarian. For various feats, you
could increase the number of rage uses left in the day as a prerequisite.
For the Mighty Rage Feat, for example, you could require at least three uses
left.
Different Classes
The paladin has two daily abilities that make reserve feats an attractive
choice, in addition to limited spellcasting. Between the ability to turn
undead and the ability to lay on hands, making use of the turn undead
ability is the better choice. For one thing, two core classes have the
ability, so the same feats can apply to both classes, although the two
classes will qualify for them at different levels.
A second, although lesser, consideration is that the paladin can split up
the lay on hands ability to any increment. If you require only that a
character have any healing ability left, a character can always choose to
hold back 1 hit point of healing. That's a weak prerequisite.
A 4th level paladin with Charisma 18 can lay on hands for 16 hit points
during the course of the day. A 16th level paladin with Charisma 12 has the
same ability to the same degree. Whenever possible, you want to be able to
predict what level the character gains the feat so that you don't assign the
wrong power level. The variation between characters of different Charisma
scores makes it difficult to assess.
Paladin and cleric primary abilities should focus on the two things those
classes have in common. Turning undead, healing, combat, and religion are
elements they share. The ability to heal at will is far more upsetting to a
campaign than the ability to inflict damage at will, so it's best to avoid
that as an at-will ability.
How about brandishing the holy symbol for a lesser but broader effect? If
we want to encourage combat options, the ability shouldn't be tied only to
the undead. The character could use the power of his god to menace the
enemy, as with the demoralize use of the Intimidate skill. The effect might
be a heftier penalty than the demoralize effect, either in degree or in
duration.
The obvious choice for a secondary effect is to grant the character a +1
bonus to either turning checks or damage-or both. I would avoid giving the
character an effective +1 level when turning undead because another feat
already does that. Subsuming another feat under your new feat's secondary
effect is a sign that your feat is too powerful.
For monks, the ability to use stunning fist is a natural focus for reserve
feats. While not all monks choose the ability, it's a pretty common one.
At higher levels, monks gain the abundant step and empty body abilities once
per day each. Those are likely candidates, too.
Bards have decent spellcasting ability, but they also have the ability to
use bardic music. Reserve feats based on the number of bardic music uses
left per day provide another alternative.
Fighters and rogues have no daily abilities. Their versatile
character-building options hamper the application of this type of feat.
However, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Fighters and rogues almost
always have an action, and it usually involves a satisfying squish
sound.
Include GMs and Players
Including GMs is easier to do when writing source material than crunch, but
you can do it with an article like this, too. You could design feats that
depend on monstrous abilities, for example. Demons can summon other demons;
a reserve feat dependent on retaining the ability to summon a demon might
summon an infernal bat swarm, for example. A good secondary benefit might
be an extra point of damage reduction or one flavor of energy resistance.
Organize and Format
Once you have a list of feats, order them alphabetically. Depending on the
length of the article (for which you might check your magazine's submission
guidelines or compare similar articles in the magazine), you might have
anywhere from 6 to 20 feats. Make sure you've represented all the classes.
If you're writing these items for a book, you might want to create a table
that summarizes them. You might want the table anyway for your own
reference. When writing an article that features new spells, for example,
you want to make sure you covered multiple spell levels evenly. An article
containing 4 9th-level spells and 1 each of 1st through 3rd-level spells is
awkward unless there's a good reason for it.
Add your introductory text explaining what you set out to do and why you set
out to do it. If you're including this for a specific game setting,
describe how they fit into the setting.
One of my points of judgment on game material is the question "Does this
material open up as much as it closes off?" You might include a bulleted
list of unused ideas as suggestions for additional feats.
Playtest
Introduce the material into your campaign. If you have friends who run
games, ask if they'll experiment with the material. Solicit feedback. If a
feat or a spell engenders a lot of heated debate, that's usually a good
thing. Crunch items that are too good or too bad generate unanimous
responses.
Rewrite
Revise and edit your text, change your abilities, and clean things up in
general. Make sure to remove as many passive writing as possible. That
sentence, for example, should be "Remove passive writing." Remove
unnecessary qualifiers such as most, often, and
sometimes. Run your spellchecker. Check point of view for
consistency. It's common for a revision to reduce your word count by 10%.
Do that, and then do it again.
Make sure your article complies with the market's format and style
guidelines.
Send that puppy in.
That's a Wrap
That's a brief version of how an idea turns into a complete article using an
easy example. Articles less reliant on crunch require more decision-making
during the design process, and are less conducive to a workshop format.
They require more personal attention. Feel free to bring up specific
examples you'd like help with in the forums, and I'm sure you'll get no lack
of attention. |
