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Post by chirality on Apr 9, 2013 17:29:03 GMT
Right. It fits well. Again, once realizing that it's not MEANT to be "great meaningful bonus" makes it much more clear. What about giving them the feat "Extra Spell 6" instead of Greater Ruin (Funky posted "we can't add any more," but that's in addition to the Extra Spell Known feats I think?) Yes, I was thinking 6. As I alluded and pete said, it's hard to give an ESK that "all" sorc would find equally useful but 6 is a crunch level and seems the best for universal +power. I'm not sure after Funky's post if this is viable at all, but I see +spell known allowing full flex on a given sorc's schools/build to be a lot more useful than +DC on spells that, while may be equally "universal" in theory, aren't necessarily truly useful to everyone. Mind Fog, even Weird, sure maybe these are "given" spells for sorc" but I think +1 DC is a lot less useful to sorc than adding flex would be. My thoughts on that idea was based on your comparison of boosting wiz/sorc in opposing ways to help their respective "downsides"--if wiz gets +DC, then sorc should get more flex. Ruin helps with flex but again it seems to have troubling potential impact. For a player like me, 3 ruins (or even 2 with 1/2 the Spc ranks) would be a huge bonus for LLs and low/zero demi endgame runs. With DC 65 it isn't so attractive to all players or all runs/builds but it seems extremely powerful situationally. For example, just speaking hypothetically, for me and my current play, if I had xr wiz to reinc my wiz I would take free ruin + extra ruin in a heartbeat over free styg robe effect. Conversely for many other "top" players the +DC would be a no-contest choice. Again I think the DC and ruins could be swapped for sorc/wiz to be more synergy, but that's another can of worms entirely.
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Post by pete on Apr 9, 2013 17:33:15 GMT
Armor Skin should be dropped, hopefully for something better like empower or great cha I I don't know anyone that tries to play an AC based sorc, they all use EV and accept the low AC You're assuming that the reason it's there is game balance. It isn't. It's a racial characteristic, and is not weighed very heavily with respect to game balance. Did you look up Kaorti before posting this? Unlikely, because it's smack-you-in-the-face obvious why they get it. As I posted earlier, game balance is only one of at least three major considerations in play. And while it is the most important, any argument based on the premise that any ability a subrace gets should be either 'typical' or maximally powerful for its chosen class is going to fall on deaf ears. Likewise, the fact that people dont try to play AC-based sorc doesn't mean the feat is useless, even though it's weighed less heavily. In fact, it means that those 2 points of AC will be at maximal usefulness when it comes to defence, unless your AC is so low that a 2 will hit you...also very unlikely, for most monsters. Obviously, you won't be trying to put that AC to the test on a regular basis, but it will be there should you need it. There already are some, and they're a favorite target of player complaints. Have you never seen an UR-Ward with its ASF randed down? About a third of them are, and players are very fond of referring to them as useless. Obviously, though, we'll be adding more items, with more benefits than the typical item, to give value to both this and the Armored Mage that Jaebrin gets. Someone actually confused this ability with Armored Mage, but it's far superior. Funky You are correct I did assume it was for game balance, and I have been working on the premise that these subs feats were focused for specific builds, and armor skin didnt seem to be to be focused at caster sorcs. I missed the part where you said your target is making them fit the names they have been given. i retract my suggestion the combo of armor skin and -AFS might even promote some armored caster sorcs i had completely forgotten about those random items, because they get thrown away when they drop, the -ASF will make these useable on sorcs, though i worry there will be other casters complaining that sorcs get it easy being able to use items that would be nerfed in the hands of other casters I would guess that extra spells known is out because then you would have to program some way of choosing which level of extra spells known to give, there is no singe level that all sorcerers take, it depends on the foci they choose (though they are usually between 6 and 9) and there are some who don't take this feat at all No, it's out because, among other reasons, we simply can't add any more, even with engine hacks. Of course, we had this in mind when we orginally added what we did, because it's also a soft cap on the number of additional arcane spells we can introduce, due to wiz/sorc balancing. Funky I think i worded my post badly, i meant that i personally wouldnt give the Extra Spell Known epic feat as a subrace feat (which is what I think Chirality ment) as you have to pick the level of the bonus spell, say you made it Extra Spell Known [level 9] then trans and necro focused sorcs would be annoyed that lvl 6 is hard to fit and would rather have the level 6 version of the feat. i didnt mean increasing the cap on max number of spells known. Or +1 DC to confusion, mind fog, and other madness-flavored, mind-affecting spells, if we want to follow the trend of the other subbies. a problem with that the diversity in sorcerer builds comes from the foci they choose, some do not take illusion or enchantment foci or spells making mind bonuses less useful to those builds and promoting builds to take those foci and spells in order to use the bonus but clerics all use implosion and all evil ones use HB (yes I know I am back taking about build balance when your now on making them fit the name, but this one seemed important to me) Sorcs can already get 130 ac or so in gird, which is not so low to be useless. 130 is amazing! please PM me how to do this im at 110 with 30 tumble and a UR ward with +2 AC if its me being daft again and sorcs normally run around with 130 AC then i also retract any negative comments about armor skin
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2013 17:39:42 GMT
Druid cleric and wiz get great stat II + two pre epic feats but sorc is stuck with only three universally taken feats and pigeonholed with Greater Ruin. Wouldn't it be more fair for sorc to get Great Cha II, Spell Pen+Greater Spell Pen and "bonus" could be Greater Ruin + Armor Skin feats? (no more extra greater ruin)
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Post by chirality on Apr 9, 2013 18:19:19 GMT
+1
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Post by Yojimbo on Apr 9, 2013 18:51:19 GMT
Personally given the greater power of the Sorc class to Wiz I'm inclined to not give them more but since fixing the class issues should be done with the classes and not with subs I do hear you. I do not like having such a cookie cutter design to the caster subs hell so many having those feats already is kind of a nuisance to me. If the sub needs more to be brought in line with other subs try suggesting outside of the box. Looking at it myself it gets 3 Epic feats while the other XR casters get 2 granted the 3rd, Armor Skin, is of minimal use it still is an extra Epic level feat.
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Post by KnightErrant on Apr 9, 2013 19:07:14 GMT
Instead of Extra Spell Known feat for the Sorc sub you could add a "spell like ability" ?
Something along these lines ? (just throwing out ideas...)
!gate set teleport ability without having the actual spell. Use Spell Mantle x5 a day. Use Greater Stoneskin x5 a day. Use Fear x5 a day.
KE.
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Post by Xiayu on Apr 9, 2013 19:58:16 GMT
- Theurge (Lloth-Touched) I am a bit confused on the cleric special, it doesn’t look very useful to me. I would prefer them both to have either the lore bonus or +1 to spell penetration instead and move the 150 lore cap to CC Wizard XR. Check the updated journal entry on poison. It's been that way for a long time, but the journal hadn't been updated in ages. Funky I am sorry I was not clear before. I know what poison spell does. But poison overlaps with heartbane role/spellslots; they are both the same level, and poison takes more casts to take effect (only a few enemies you can instakill with poison and not heartbane, mostly paragon versions and barely useful in hells, I think) and +5 DC brings it to the same DC. It is a nice bonus, but to me, it would be better on an item rather than as a subrace special. Back to Jaebrin, Armored Mage or not, it seems an inferior choice for a bard when you could go with Half-Lillend’s specials. Maybe allowing them to cast enchantment spells one tier above their current focus? (Specialization if you have PSF: Enchantment, thought it could be capped at PSF max bonus). I agree with this, and I would like it very much. I have played many casters and I have only ever picked Greater Ruin once on any of them, and it was just for testing when it got added to the mod. Yes, it is a nice spell to have... when you have free feats, which sorcerers don't really have. I am okay with it being the class 'special' but not counting it as an actual feat when it comes down to the number of epic feat they can get compared to other casters.
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Post by Yojimbo on Apr 9, 2013 20:13:33 GMT
Are those complaining about the Sorc XR not noticing it gets Epic Spell Penetration? The 3 Epic feats the Sorc XR gets are: Epic Spell Penetration, Greater Ruin, and Armor Skin. Armor Skin has minimal usage but can anyone tell me their Sorc won't take GR or Epic Spell Penetration? Both these feats occupy the same feat slots Great Charisma would take so changing from those to Great Feats changes next to nothing other than more CHA early on.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 9, 2013 21:35:25 GMT
Check the updated journal entry on poison. It's been that way for a long time, but the journal hadn't been updated in ages. Funky I am sorry I was not clear before. I know what poison spell does. But poison overlaps with heartbane role/spellslots; they are both the same level, and poison takes more casts to take effect (only a few enemies you can instakill with poison and not heartbane, mostly paragon versions and barely useful in hells, I think) and +5 DC brings it to the same DC. It is a nice bonus, but to me, it would be better on an item rather than as a subrace special. Actually, depending on domain choice, you can get it at 3rd, and I think, due to the way DCs are calculated, still get the level four DC to boot. As for where it's useful...heh. Why? You're going to have to offer a little more detail than that to persuade me. That's a nice bonus in terms of race and class flavor. In terms of game balance, I think it's probably worse, given that Jaeb doesn't get an 8 stat (and if they did we'd have to subtract an additional 2 to bring them down to a total of 12, which would be a real kick in the nuts). I also suspect you're severely undervaluing armored mage because its value is largely based on future edits. I don't think you understand the way we're using the term 'pidgeonholed'. We're avoiding handing out some spell foci and dc bonuses on this basis because they force the build to take a certain path. Greater Ruin in no way does that, as its DC is totally independant of school. Pidgeonholing does not mean doing something vulgar or unpleasant to a class (or a pidgeon, for that matter). Fair? Not really. More uniform, obviously. But the fact that we're weighing apples and oranges doesn't make simplifying the comparison inherently fairer, only less complex. Cookie cutter is something we like to avoid. That said, the Greater Ruin feat on sorcs is one of my least favorite XR specials, as it bears little relation to the class or race flavor, so if you actually suggest something that is better on net you can rest assured it will be gone in a flash. Funky
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Post by Xiayu on Apr 10, 2013 2:28:03 GMT
Yes, again… I know about the domain, and even though you could just take it at almost no cost, it is still forcing you to take it if you want to have the ability to cast more poison spells that don’t overlap with heartbane. And level 3 is not any better than level 4 for slots, it is a level that is filled with prayers (one of cleric’s main spells), and other debuffs/buffs like Bestow Curse, Cold & Fire Weapon, Remove Curse/Disease, etc. I play a shifter too (Iron Golem shape) so I know how useful it is on hells/abyss/aboleth/elysium. Of course I am not aware of how useful it will be in upcoming areas so I can’t comment on that. My point was, that with the current state of the module, it is not an appealing bonus to me as a subrace special and I would have preferred 150 lore cap for the rare damage spell you might cast as a divine theurge. I do like the +1 Spell Penetration bonus on both theurges a lot more and it fits the quasi. However if you are saying this spell will become a big part of cleric’s spell book for the new areas, then I won’t mention it anymore. Simply because of how powerful feat-level poison immunity is. It is something you get from an ability artifact, so it basically allows you to use any other for extra miscellaneous immunity or stats. It makes you immune to certain insta-death effect, and you can encounter plenty of these checks from Tia to Nessus and in many areas of Abyss. ‘Caster’ bards are almost non-existent, but you will encounter plenty of ‘Uni’, Support or Melee bards, and they all favor the use of constitution artifact. – It is one, if not the most used artifact on all tank builds of any kind just for this immunity. – You could get +16 GMW if you allowed specialization with Paragon Focus. I think it is not the best bonus but it is decent enough, especially since not all clerics get IoF anymore and there aren’t many pariahs around. I would probably drop the +2 INT in order to get +8 CHA on Jaebrin, if you want to focus it more as a caster variant. Could give this + armored mage as special. I might be undervaluing Armored Mage a bit because it is hard to say how good it will be right now. I am also not sure how it would actually work; ‘no spell failure with light armor’ made me think they will want to use any light armor but the bard special sets and that is hard to give up. I would like to hear about the future edits regarding Armored Mage before I can say how useful it is, if that is possible. About sorcerer XR, my concern is that they don’t get 2 epic feats that ANY sorcerer build would pick, like spell penetration or ability score, they just get one (Epic Spell Penetration). I don’t know if it is what you are calling ‘cookie cutter’. It is not forcing you into any path, in fact, you can just take any spell focuses you want to, and you can pick Greater Ruin on levelup if you really like it. I don't really have any other suggestion right now, other than to give sorcerer XR 2 Great Charisma feat and 2 pre epic feats (metamagics or spell penetration) and just keep GR as the special, with or without the extra use.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 10, 2013 2:56:01 GMT
I don’t know if it is what you are calling ‘cookie cutter’. It is not forcing you into any path, in fact, you can just take any spell focuses you want to, and you can pick Greater Ruin on levelup if you really like it. I don't really have any other suggestion right now, other than to give sorcerer XR 2 Great Charisma feat and 2 pre epic feats (metamagics or spell penetration) and just keep GR as the special, with or without the extra use. The suggestion that we give sorcs GC 1 and 2 is what I'm referring to as 'cookie cutter'. You explicitly based your suggestion on the fact that the others get it. Cookiecutter also has nothing to do with forcing a given path, that's pidgeonholing, as I explained above. Funky
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2013 3:02:53 GMT
Without giving sorcs legendary spell pen or extra spell known feat, the only other way to give them another epic feat besides epic spell pen in order to make their epic feat bonus equal to the other caster subs is to give them great cha.
What about giving clerics great wis I, greater ruin, extend + empower spell and sorc gets great cha I+II, spell pen and greater spell pen? People would be just as upset..
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 10, 2013 3:20:29 GMT
And why would we want to make their epic feats equal the other casters? That assumes a whole unspoken lot. Heck, they didn't even get armor skin until I added it for flavor. Funky
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2013 3:23:50 GMT
Because you said we aren't supposed to be addressing class balance with XR subs. Sorc gets disadvantaged compared to wiz as the XR subs are right now: wiz gets a powerful dc boost and +1 more useful epic feat, sorc gets armor skin + greater ruin which no sorc builds currently take. BUR caster subs also gave wiz, druid/cleric (Because HC best sub for both of them right now), sorc same number of "universally taken" feats except wiz got lev and wiz got max spell which isn't a big concern; also none got epic feats. I like diversifying their "extra" feats not taken and "specials" but giving certain caster subs +1 universally taken epic feat over another (which is where sorc is disadvantaged right now) doesn't make much sense to me. Why don't we give cleric 1 feat: quicken spell. We're comparing apples and oranges, right?
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 10, 2013 3:34:13 GMT
Because you said we aren't supposed to be addressing class balance with XR subs. I said it wasn't my goal to attempt to address that, since PL areas were already taking care of arcane/melee imbalance, and that the gradual addition of spells would eventually redress sorc/wiz imbalances created by our granting sorcs extra spells known. That doesn't mean that they must be exactly equal. In fact, the notion that we can gauge exact worth of all the abilities is sort of laughable. Nor does it mean that they must all have x numbers of pre-epic and x numbers of epic feats, as should be obvious from a glance at the sheet. Your argument is still missing a whole bucketful of premises. When you start comparing all of one side's bonuses to only part of anothers to make your case, your case is in real trouble. And? Subs must have the same number of 'universally taken' feats? Again, this is a shambles of an argument. Instead of trying to rail against what you perceive as inequality, I suggest you do what I already suggested above: SUGGEST SOMETHING ELSE. I've already made it clear I'm not a fan of the GR, for flavor reasons. That, or take a lot more time to think through what you're arguing - it's VERY difficult to compare the relative values of these subs, especially since the value of -ASF is so unclear to you right now. Funky
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