D&D 3.5 Rules for a Breath of Fire 2-like Shaman System

For the Shaman system, I ended up trying to balance it across, all 11 races, where anyone could fuse for a +2 in a corresponding stat (+1 to their modifier), and then each race had a transformation pair that gave a new special ability. The shamans where scattered across my setting to thematically appropriate places with the side quest to find them initiated by finding granny, and they followed a couple of rules:

1) Any Fusion will end when the character loses > 90% of max HP unless will save = dc 10 + char level. Upon failing or if a player drops below 0 HP the fused shaman returns to granny’s location.

2) Any Player may fuse with no more than 2 shaman at a time.

3) Dragon Clan cannot Fuse

Also I tried to make Karn’s fusions work with everything but didn’t end up needing to use them. Basically anyone of Karn’s bloodline could fuse with another character (PC or NPC/hireling) to get HP = 150% of greater contributing HP pool. Stat modifiers between the two characters would be averaged. They would have access to all skills, special abilities, and feats. And they would use the better land speed of the fused characters. Imagery would be left up to the DM’s discretion.

Sana (Fire) gave +2 to atk, Seso (Water) +2 int, Spoo (Wind) +2 dex, Solo (Earth) +2 Con, Seny (Holy) +2 wis, Shin (Dark) +2 cha.

Grassrunners: (Sana) +4 atk. Transformation (Seny + Shin) Gain a robotic shape, ability Spray (ex) 1/level/day, the Grassrunner may make a single Ranged force attack against all targets in cone originating from the user, Damage = Grassrunner’s main weapon damage, Range increment = 30Ft unless the grassrunner’s main weapon is ranged then use the longer range.

Shell Clan:  Transformation (Seny + Solo) take an armadillo’s form, +20 tumble, AC +3, small size (additional +1 to AC).

Woren: Transformation (Shin), or (Shin +Sana), or (Shin + Seso) take the form of a black haired/furred warrior, ability Keep (ex) focus for one round, next attack is an automatic critical hit.

Windian: (Spoo) gain a green hue, +4 dex and if the Windian is a spell user +1 spell slot for each level known. (Spoo + Sana) or (Spoo + Seso), gain a red hue and shaman bonus is +4 instead of +2. Transformation (Spoo + Seny) take the form a great angel, ability Banish (su) 1/level/day Turn all enemies as is using turn undead.

Highlander: (Sana + Seny), gain a golden hue, and shaman bonus is +4. Transformation (Sana + Seso) Take the form of a fiery Djinn, ability Sway: 1/level/day make the DM reroll the enemies in a random encounter on the encounter table. (Possibly used against bosses with a 50% (or more) failure chance)

Creeping Clan: (Solo) gain a toad like appearance and shaman bonus is +4, Transformation (Solo + Seso) Gain the ability to turn into a giant frog (su) at will (I don’t have stats for this, I’d recommend leveling up an appropriate monster/ or using its stat block). Transformation (Seny + Seso) or (Seny + Spoo) take the form of a regal knight, ability Chop (ex): 1/level/day if the chop attack hits an enemy, they must make Fort save vs DC 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Strength modifier or die (unless the enemy is immune to critical hits, for bosses it was a 3x critical)

Grassman: Transform (Seny + Seso) or (Seny + Spoo) take the form of a mushroom person, ability Spore (ex) 1/level/day gain the ability to cast sleep or deep slumber according to your level. Transformation (Sana + Shin) take the form of a Trent +4 to all stats. Transformation (Solo + Seny) take the form of a bulb, ability Bud (ex): declare you are making a bud attack, make a single attack against one target, if successful the next attack against the same target gets +2 to the attack roll and causes double damage.

Manillo: (Seso) gain a bluish hue and shaman bonus is +4, Transformation (Seso + Spoo) gain the ability to transform at will into a giant whale (su).

Iron Ogre: (Sana) gain a redish hue, shaman bonus is +4. Transformation (Shin + Sana) take the form of a giant Iron Ogre, +1 size category, and gain the feat Break: The DC for your attempts at breaking objects is decreased by your character level.

Dirt Eating Clan: (Solo) shaman bonus +4. Transformation (Solo + Seny) gain the form of a Badger, ability Trap (ex) 1/level/day while burrowing under a target, you can entrap the target under the earth. Reflex DC = attack roll.

Bonus: At one point I had a player playing a lizard folk (race as is from the monster manual), and added shaman stuff for them: Lizard Folk: (Spoo) gain rudimentary feathers, shaman bonus +4. Transformation (Spoo + Solo) gain the form of a Tyrannosaurus, use T-rex stat block with HP capped to the player’s number of HD.

D&D 3.5 Rules for Dragon Transformation

Rules for Dragon Transformation adapted from the Wild Shape Supernatural ability. For Breath of Fire game comparisons, in practice this plays like a cross between how the transformations work in BoFI and BoFIV

Dragon Wild Shape (Su)

-Dragon Clans men gain the ability to turn herself into a Small or Medium dragon and back again once per day. You gain all the extraordinary and supernatural abilities of the dragon whose form you take, but not any spell-like abilities or spellcasting powers. Changing form (to dragon or back) is a standard action and doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity. HP in dragon form is capped at the same amount of hit die that the player currently has. Each dragon form has its own HP pool, each of which is not refreshed until a full night’s rest.

-The options for dragon form are affected by alignment. i.e. Good dragon clan cannot change into evil dragons.

-Any gear worn or carried by the clansman melds into the new form and becomes nonfunctional. When the clansman reverts to her true form, any objects previously melded into the new form reappear in the same location on her body that they previously occupied and are once again functional. Any new items worn in the assumed form fall off and land at the clansman’s feet.

A dragon clansman loses her ability to speak while in animal form because she is limited to the sounds that a normal, untrained animal can make, but she can communicate normally with other animals of the same general grouping as her new form. (The normal sound a wild parrot makes is a squawk, so changing to this form does not permit speech.)

-A dragon clansman can use this ability additional times per day at the 2^nd, 4^th, 6^th, and 10^th levels after gaining this ability as well as another time at 18^th character level.  In addition, she gains the ability to take the shape of a Large dragon at 5^th level after gaining this ability, a Tiny dragon 7 levels after, and a Huge dragon at 15th character level.

-The new form’s Hit Dice can’t exceed the character’s level.

-10 levels after gaining this ability, a dragon clansman becomes unrestricted to dragons matching his alignment.