Post by Twilight Semner on Mar 13, 2016 21:00:41 GMT
This is what Fallen currently offers:
"Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings)
- FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard
- STR +6, CON +1, INT +2, CHA +5, Hide +5
- Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Empower Spell, Great Strength I, Mounted Combat
- Other: Immunity to all Bigby spells, Survival: Levitation
This is suggestion as it currently stands:
"Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings)
- FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard
- STR +8, CHA +5, Hide +5
- Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II, Mounted Combat, SF/GSF enchantment
- Survival: Levitation
Fallen discussion so far, starting it here, continued in replies:
I guess the reason I find it the most problematic is for a number a reasons:
1) BK needs help to begin with and this subrace doesn't do it any favors because it doesn't even address the 3 main caster stats that the quasi has to, by definition, have at least minimum benchmarks for: STR (need as much as possible), WIS (need at least 14) and CHA (need at least 19).
2) +1 CON - which is simply a joke. It's useless. It provides absolutely nothing - in fact, it hurts any build it's attached to. Why? Because you can't afford to start with more than 11 or so CON to begin with, due to the aforementioned requirements of the quasi, and you certainly can't use precious ability score bonuses later in the build to offset it being odd. Furthermore, at character creation, having to start that low means you HAVE to make one of your other stats odd. Which one will it be? CHA? That's a no-go because the quasi doesn't provide +6 CHA, so you can't get to the 19 that you need. Dex? Why bother? 1 more Dex isn't going to provide a worthwhile benefit and you're not going to get another +1 mod so it's not going to provide any extra AC. STR? Maybe. It would be the most likely candidate, if you started at 17 (which would cost 13 points), but the question is, will that provide enough STR, or conversely, will it leave enough points to dip into the other stats that you need to boost?
3) +2 INT - yeah, sure, any build wants INT, but this is a build that already has a lot of requirements, and you already get +1 skill point from Half-elf. In reality, this one isn't as big of a deal as the others because you're probably gonna be trading it for WIS anyway. ie. if you go 10 base INT and let this boost you to 12, you're gonna go +14 WIS, and conversely if it had +2 WIS, you would go 12 INT/12 WIS and let the race boost you to the required 14 WIS. So this one at least is one of those 6 and one-half dozen situations (which is why the +2 INT stayed in the final version).
4) Feats - this subrace loses an absolutely precious epic feat vs. the BUR subrace you would be using (Pharlan gets Great Strength I & II). Not only that, but it gets a heck of a lot less feats than some other subraces to begin with. Cf. Half-Ogre Mage, which gets 7 feats, granted 6 of them are pre-epic, but Fallen only gets 5, 4 of which are pre-epic and one of which is pure filler for the sake of PDK splash (and as you've stated in past posts, should be viewed purely as a free feats, not taking away from the other feats the subrace gets). So really Fallen only gets 4 feats - and Empower really isn't that useful, usable only really for empowered Vampiric Touch and Spell Mantles.
So that's largely the mindset I operated under when looking to edit the subrace, addressing those concerns while providing a special that was specific to the build, while not being of much use to other Divine tanks (why would they waste a feat on SF: Enchantment (the only real focus they're gonna pursue) when they can just eat the book and be done with it?). Yes, the stat spread became homogeneous with Half-Excruciarch and Solarborn, but that's because it's a great stat spread. If you wanted to distinguish it more from Solarborn and Half-Excruciarch, you could change it to STR +8, WIS +2, CHA +4, which would be a lot of stats (same total, but no other subrace gets a +8 and a total of 14, except Phoelarch which gets +16 but only because of Gnome's inherent -2 STR), sure, but BK needs a TON of STR and currently, even with Pharlan you can't get enough STR to fully make use of their quasi specials (namely, 1/4 STR mod spell penetration and 9/10 STR mod to DC), so most people just end up eating a Epic Spell penetration book.
That being said, I'm not certain that the formulation I've come up with is perfect, but the original formulation just doesn't work. I would rather use Pharlan, or just use one of the other divine tank subraces.
Heck, I'd even be happy with the following:
"Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings)
- FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard
- STR +8, CHA +5, Hide +5
- Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II, Mounted Combat
- Other: Special: Upon taking its first spell focus feat, the character receives GSF/ESF in that same school, Survival: Levitation
"Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings)
- FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard
- STR +6, CON +1, INT +2, CHA +5, Hide +5
- Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Empower Spell, Great Strength I, Mounted Combat
- Other: Immunity to all Bigby spells, Survival: Levitation
This is suggestion as it currently stands:
"Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings)
- FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard
- STR +8, CHA +5, Hide +5
- Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II, Mounted Combat, SF/GSF enchantment
- Survival: Levitation
Fallen discussion so far, starting it here, continued in replies:
1) BK needs help to begin with and this subrace doesn't do it any favors because it doesn't even address the 3 main caster stats that the quasi has to, by definition, have at least minimum benchmarks for: STR (need as much as possible), WIS (need at least 14) and CHA (need at least 19).
2) +1 CON - which is simply a joke. It's useless. It provides absolutely nothing - in fact, it hurts any build it's attached to. Why? Because you can't afford to start with more than 11 or so CON to begin with, due to the aforementioned requirements of the quasi, and you certainly can't use precious ability score bonuses later in the build to offset it being odd. Furthermore, at character creation, having to start that low means you HAVE to make one of your other stats odd. Which one will it be? CHA? That's a no-go because the quasi doesn't provide +6 CHA, so you can't get to the 19 that you need. Dex? Why bother? 1 more Dex isn't going to provide a worthwhile benefit and you're not going to get another +1 mod so it's not going to provide any extra AC. STR? Maybe. It would be the most likely candidate, if you started at 17 (which would cost 13 points), but the question is, will that provide enough STR, or conversely, will it leave enough points to dip into the other stats that you need to boost?
3) +2 INT - yeah, sure, any build wants INT, but this is a build that already has a lot of requirements, and you already get +1 skill point from Half-elf. In reality, this one isn't as big of a deal as the others because you're probably gonna be trading it for WIS anyway. ie. if you go 10 base INT and let this boost you to 12, you're gonna go +14 WIS, and conversely if it had +2 WIS, you would go 12 INT/12 WIS and let the race boost you to the required 14 WIS. So this one at least is one of those 6 and one-half dozen situations (which is why the +2 INT stayed in the final version).
4) Feats - this subrace loses an absolutely precious epic feat vs. the BUR subrace you would be using (Pharlan gets Great Strength I & II). Not only that, but it gets a heck of a lot less feats than some other subraces to begin with. Cf. Half-Ogre Mage, which gets 7 feats, granted 6 of them are pre-epic, but Fallen only gets 5, 4 of which are pre-epic and one of which is pure filler for the sake of PDK splash (and as you've stated in past posts, should be viewed purely as a free feats, not taking away from the other feats the subrace gets). So really Fallen only gets 4 feats - and Empower really isn't that useful, usable only really for empowered Vampiric Touch and Spell Mantles.
So that's largely the mindset I operated under when looking to edit the subrace, addressing those concerns while providing a special that was specific to the build, while not being of much use to other Divine tanks (why would they waste a feat on SF: Enchantment (the only real focus they're gonna pursue) when they can just eat the book and be done with it?). Yes, the stat spread became homogeneous with Half-Excruciarch and Solarborn, but that's because it's a great stat spread. If you wanted to distinguish it more from Solarborn and Half-Excruciarch, you could change it to STR +8, WIS +2, CHA +4, which would be a lot of stats (same total, but no other subrace gets a +8 and a total of 14, except Phoelarch which gets +16 but only because of Gnome's inherent -2 STR), sure, but BK needs a TON of STR and currently, even with Pharlan you can't get enough STR to fully make use of their quasi specials (namely, 1/4 STR mod spell penetration and 9/10 STR mod to DC), so most people just end up eating a Epic Spell penetration book.
That being said, I'm not certain that the formulation I've come up with is perfect, but the original formulation just doesn't work. I would rather use Pharlan, or just use one of the other divine tank subraces.
Heck, I'd even be happy with the following:
"Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings)
- FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard
- STR +8, CHA +5, Hide +5
- Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II, Mounted Combat
- Other: Special: Upon taking its first spell focus feat, the character receives GSF/ESF in that same school, Survival: Levitation