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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 17:54:25 GMT -7
Eh, the General consensus zanos, and one I have seen reinforced time and time again as I played a ton of psionics in 3.5 is this: Psionic spells do a bunch of stuff, but they do not get the automatic scaling that other casters get. On top of this they have a lower amount of powers than even sorcerers. The action economy breaking I believe your talking about was achieved with schism, which was busted in 3.5. It was nerfed heavily by dreamscarred.
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Post by Gryphyx on Jan 30, 2015 17:54:44 GMT -7
the wbl table is basically the wealth if you start on a certain level. it is assumed, you had spend some money on consumables on the way there. so, with all the restorations, potions, scrolls, that we buy, that is all unaccounted for if you calculate the wealth given to be exactly as much as the wbl you would have at lvl X. that's why in the guidelines, it says to account for the consumables. Consumables are, and have always been, awarded separately. Check out the bullet point below the chart dragonsgate.wikia.com/wiki/Character_AdvancementMagic items can also be awarded above and beyond this award (but should be done sparingly) so that should offset any slight fall behind from not being awarded enough consumables. |
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Post by Gryphyx on Jan 30, 2015 17:56:15 GMT -7
For those worried about psionics complexity: Is it any more complex than vancian? The issue is with rules bloat. Tacking on a whole 'nother system that GMs need to learn, significantly raises the knowledge barrier. I'm honestly not looking forward to learning these rules either. On the other hand, I love more options. So I'm torn. |
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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 17:56:19 GMT -7
For those worried about psionics complexity: Is it any more complex than vancian? The issue is with rules bloat. Tacking on a whole 'nother system that GMs need to learn, significantly raises the knowledge barrier. That is fair, I personally have never had problems with bloat but I do have a larger amount of time to learn stupid things than most people. That being said, I wouldn't be pushing for psionics if i didnt feel they weren't worth pushing for. Dreamscarred presses psionics were basically a core book for my old group. I think yes, it does add more things to learn, but the storys, npcs, and characters that could be built using make it worth consideration for me at least. |
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Post by aetheri on Jan 30, 2015 17:57:18 GMT -7
I suppose ultimately as long as the changes are applied slowly then it should be fine.
Obvious changes like crafting etc should be implemented as soon as it is final.
Huge changes like adding Dreamscarred things needs to be discussed extensively before approving it.
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Post by Gryphyx on Jan 30, 2015 17:58:47 GMT -7
I have no comment on psionics, as I have never used them, not have I ever allowed them in my home games. I like them mechanically, but I do not like them flavour wise. As for other 3PP content, I suggest taking a look at Purple Duck Games's "Legendary" series for rules on artifact items if you guys ever consider implementing them. If we do use psionics we will be changing the fluff dramatically. Hmm... I find it unlikely we'll ever use artifacts but this is good to know for down the road. Thanks. |
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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 17:59:34 GMT -7
I suppose ultimately as long as the changes are applied slowly then it should be fine. Obvious changes like crafting etc should be implemented as soon as it is final. Huge changes like adding Dreamscarred things needs to be discussed extensively before approving it. Yep, hence the reaching out to you guys! |
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Post by shroudb on Jan 30, 2015 18:03:51 GMT -7
the wbl table is basically the wealth if you start on a certain level. it is assumed, you had spend some money on consumables on the way there. so, with all the restorations, potions, scrolls, that we buy, that is all unaccounted for if you calculate the wealth given to be exactly as much as the wbl you would have at lvl X. that's why in the guidelines, it says to account for the consumables. Consumables are, and have always been, awarded separately. Check out the bullet point below the chart dragonsgate.wikia.com/wiki/Character_AdvancementMagic items can also be awarded above and beyond this award (but should be done sparingly) so that should offset any slight fall behind from not being awarded enough consumables. my problem with that is the "sparringly" part. what i'm saying is the opposite. especially with a group that may not have access to a divine caster due to the random draft of parties. i mean, i put a simple poison, and the party had to spend cash on consumables. "sparringly" should be changed to "plenty depending on encounters and party composition" i mean, no one is ever going to break the wbl by given potions of lesser restoration to heal himself, of partially used wands of clw, or etc. but buying 150gp a pop potions that may only heal 1 point of temp damage is harsh. especially in an enviroment that advocates more "1day" sessions that dont easily allow natural healing The issue is with rules bloat. Tacking on a whole 'nother system that GMs need to learn, significantly raises the knowledge barrier. That is fair, I personally have never had problems with bloat but I do have a larger amount of time to learn stupid things than most people. That being said, I wouldn't be pushing for psionics if i didnt feel they weren't worth pushing for. Dreamscarred presses psionics were basically a core book for my old group. I think yes, it does add more things to learn, but the storys, npcs, and characters that could be built using make it worth consideration for me at least. there are like a ton of options already. i dont see why anything cant be mayde with refluffing existing material. I personally dont have the time to learn new stuff, so unless it is widely accepted by the whole community, expect quite a bit of "lvl3-5session, no psionics" from me. not out of spite or anything, but simply because i am unable atm to spend so much time learning everysinge ability and class combo that can break a game i design |
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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 18:13:16 GMT -7
Adding new systems does lead to bloat. Thank you for the honesty.
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Zanos
Leadership Council
No
how did i get here i am not good with computer
Posts: 684 
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Post by Zanos on Jan 30, 2015 18:13:48 GMT -7
Eh, the General consensus zanos, and one I have seen reinforced time and time again as I played a ton of psionics in 3.5 is this: Psionic spells do a bunch of stuff, but they do not get the automatic scaling that other casters get. On top of this they have a lower amount of powers than even sorcerers. The action economy breaking I believe your talking about was achieved with schism, which was busted in 3.5. It was nerfed heavily by dreamscarred. I'm not super concerned about people augmenting their powers to do ML*d6 damage, I'm concerned about many of the unique and otherwise inaccessible effects that are introduced to the game by the inclusion of psionics. True Mind Switch, Schism, Metafaculty, Fission, Psychic Reformation, Temporal Accleration(Aka 6th level time stop), Quicken Power, uncommon bonus types, common bonus types of much higher values than usually attainable, and not to mention that identifying psionic powers can be impossible if you make a trivial concentration check and you can do it in armor. Yes, Psionics aren't as strong as spells because there are less powers. But a lot of powers offer effects that simply aren't in the game otherwise, and we need to be careful about giving people access to them because nothing but a UPD check and a 9th level power stone prevents people from hopping into a a balors body and having fun with their hilarious abilities. |
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xemadus
Leadership Council
Sure
5000
Posts: 798
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Post by xemadus on Jan 30, 2015 18:15:44 GMT -7
Looking through responses and such, most of my thoughts have been represented and discussed satisfactorily. In regards to these, will simply reaffirm the comments made by Zanos and Shroud, with the exception of their thoughts on Psionics and PoW as I have no opinion on either.
Continuing on, have two thoughts on the martial / prepared caster disparity; The first one is that prepared casters are able to access every spell available to them without much struggle. Add to this the fact that quite a number of spells outdo what a martial takes a large amount of investment to do, and the disparity is easily seen. Two potential solutions to this are simple, either reduce the versatility of casters (I.E. Cap the number of spells they can prepare from) or increase the versatility of martials. Personally, I dislike the first option so I'll proceed with the second.
The first method of increasing the versatility of martials is by reducing the number of feats they need to invest in to a specific chain. This method would vastly reduce the one trick pony feel of most martials, and it would give them the ability to become something more then a one dimensional combatant.
A second option would be tying feats to BAB rather then +1 feat per odd level. 1 feat per BAB would give martials more room to work with, thus increasing versatility. There may be fringe cases where partial casters gain unnecessary power through additional feats, but I question how much power feats truly give that can not be obtained through other methods.
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Post by dragonus45 on Jan 30, 2015 18:19:26 GMT -7
For the most part all this looks interesting, I'll have to look over things more before commetning to much but mainly PATH OF WAR YAY.
Also I would point out that power isn't really what holds back martial classes. I can make most martial classes and make a character that can contribute in combat and deal tons of damage, rogue excepted because they are just plain bad play a slayer instead. The thing that kills non casters is versatility. My fighter can swing his greatsword for omg die damage and a few times he might even hit with that second attack but the hypothetical wizard can do that just as well and then turn around and be able to find traps charm everything who doesn't like us and die three times before he actually dies.
As for the people wary of psionics I wouldn't be. Dream Scarred Press did great work and their work is honestly better balanced than anything paizo tends to put out.
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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 18:26:14 GMT -7
Eh, the General consensus zanos, and one I have seen reinforced time and time again as I played a ton of psionics in 3.5 is this: Psionic spells do a bunch of stuff, but they do not get the automatic scaling that other casters get. On top of this they have a lower amount of powers than even sorcerers. The action economy breaking I believe your talking about was achieved with schism, which was busted in 3.5. It was nerfed heavily by dreamscarred. I'm not super concerned about people augmenting their powers to do ML*d6 damage, I'm concerned about many of the unique and otherwise inaccessible effects that are introduced to the game by the inclusion of psionics. True Mind Switch, Schism, Metafaculty, Fission, Psychic Reformation, Temporal Accleration(Aka 6th level time stop), Quicken Power, uncommon bonus types, common bonus types of much higher values than usually attainable, and not to mention that identifying psionic powers can be impossible if you make a trivial concentration check and you can do it in armor. Yes, Psionics aren't as strong as spells because there are less powers. But a lot of powers offer effects that simply aren't in the game otherwise, and we need to be careful about giving people access to them because nothing but a UPD check and a 9th level power stone prevents people from hopping into a a balors body and having fun with their hilarious abilities. I dont think listing a bunch of ninth level powers (or spells for that matter) is a good argument on balance to be honest. Those are op regardless of what caster is being examined, that being said the only power on that list that truely needs to be looked over is Psychic reformation as it basically eliminates mundane retraining lol. In fact some of the spells you listed have similar arcane equivalents that are blatantly better than the listed spell in almost every way. |
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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 18:29:50 GMT -7
For the most part all this looks interesting, I'll have to look over things more before commetning to much but mainly PATH OF WAR YAY.
Also I would point out that power isn't really what holds back martial classes. I can make most martial classes and make a character that can contribute in combat and deal tons of damage, rogue excepted because they are just plain bad play a slayer instead. The thing that kills non casters is versatility. My fighter can swing his greatsword for omg die damage and a few times he might even hit with that second attack but the hypothetical wizard can do that just as well and then turn around and be able to find traps charm everything who doesn't like us and die three times before he actually dies.
As for the people wary of psionics I wouldn't be. Dream Scarred Press did great work and their work is honestly better balanced than anything paizo tends to put out. Finally, I was beginning to feel sad at all the psionics hate. They really did an amazing job on the system and honestly its one of the few non pathfinder core books I legitimately love. I personally think its better than anything but pathfinder CRB and APG |
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tkul
Death Knight
Banned
Posts: 406
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Post by tkul on Jan 30, 2015 18:33:53 GMT -7
I don't hate Psionics, they're my prefered magic system. I just hated the old Psionics are a unique and beautiful butterfly rules from 3.0/5
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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 18:43:54 GMT -7
Yeah, non transparency is absolutely dumb. I can't believe people actually ran it any other way.
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Post by sindraelyn on Jan 30, 2015 19:09:30 GMT -7
Personally, I feel that this may be a little heavy handed as a nerf to natural attacks. Maybe a progression similar to the eidolon's natural attack limitation with a possible minus one would be a better curve to still give these types an ability to shine? Should crafting just be eliminated instead of having its benefit reduced severely? I don't think that crafting should be eliminated, but the price margin for crafting should be smaller than it is pre-change to somewhat balance out the difference in gold. As you have said, the characters that don't have crafting are for the most part on track, this is with the current 75% cost for buying magical items. If the cost was adjusted to say 75% with no floor and 5% increments for possible charges, I feel that it still would allow crafters to have a meaningful reason to pick it, while still giving the reduce cost benefit to noncrafters. Also, possibly giving the "Master Crafter" feat for free to anyone that isn't a caster may help too. Is the weapon balm nerf for ammo too much? As shroudb said, the balm nerf isn't too much of a problem for non-magical enhancements. Also agree with buffing blanches for melee martials. The costs are actually pretty close between buying a balm and buying normal crafted arrows. The issue comes when you start getting magical effects that would normally require a much higher investment. I believe that those should be the ones that are changed by the nerf. Although, I may be confusing balms and blanches.... Other Changes Zen Archers - One thing you may be able to do to compensate for the loss of the extra attack is to allow spending 1ki point for an extra use of perfect shot per round, with a use/round limit to the normal BAB extra attack progression, when you would normally get that extra attack. This would give a similar ability (a better chance getting an additional hit) as the extra attack, but without giving the significant increase to damage that the extra attack can bring (4 Attack rolls for 2 damage vs 3 attack rolls for 3 damage). As for tkul's comments on the Zen: Rapid Shot and Many Shot don't do anything for a Zen Archer if they are flurrying. A zen also may not even take manyshot as a feat since they don't get 6BAB until 8th level, and the 6th level bonus feat of Improved Precise Shot (earlier than usual) is a much better choice. A fighter can arguably get the same kit as a zen, but with more durability(in addition to being less MAD) compared to the Zen's flexiblity and consistancy with applying damage. A Zen's access to feats is definitely more frontloaded than a fighter's is but they start somewhat even out overall as they level up. |
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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 19:23:29 GMT -7
The nerf to natural attackers has to be heavy handed, 3 attacks at 6 is more than generous considering that the greatest abusers of natural attacks are partial/fullcasters who completely trivialize enemys with there massive damage.
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Ash
Approvals
This world is only big enough for one loli.
Posts: 277
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Post by Ash on Jan 30, 2015 19:59:06 GMT -7
Crafting: At least it's more reasonable now. Although quest rewards will need to be increased if everyone is going to be spending 15% more on magic items from players.
Multiple Attacks: I haven't seen any issues with multiple attack abuse outside of natural attacks for obvious reasons, even zen archers weren't nearly as insane.
Combat Minions: As far as animate dead goes, that's still going to be 4+ times the caster's HD walking around doing damage. For full casters I don't feel they need that at all.
Classes & Archetypes
Cross-Blooded
Completely disagree, really. I haven't seen any sessions where Rainen (The only blaster for the first several months of DG) had trivialized encounters. I've also seen martials doing just as much damage per round, so I'm not really sure where this doing too much damage thing comes from when blasters are literally there to do just that.
Making it sorcerer only is just silly. Although I don't think the damage per die being capped at one is particularly bad, I'm honestly surprised it wasn't something in the official rules
Prepared Casters and Alchemists: Not sure why this is even here. Were alchemists getting too many spells or something?
Traits & Feats: Seems fine. With metamagic rods and other select items that apply metamagic for free I don't see a problem with this.
Conditions: Can't we just ban dazing spell and leave any other niche ability that makes use of it alone?
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Post by dragonus45 on Jan 30, 2015 21:12:59 GMT -7
Conditions: Can't we just ban dazing spell and leave any other niche ability that makes use of it alone? I kind of agree with this, I feel like we are hitting to wide a mark for dealing with one problematic element. wizardfrog Avatar Jan 30, 2015 20:29:50 GMT -5 wizardfrog said: Finally, I was beginning to feel sad at all the psionics hate. They really did an amazing job on the system and honestly its one of the few non pathfinder core books I legitimately love. I personally think its better than anything but pathfinder CRB and APG There is some stuff in the APG I think was really well done but your right about it being better designed than a lot of stuff in CRB. |
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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 22:14:42 GMT -7
Ash the idea is if you are a pure sorceror you can get +1/dice/sorceror level and add the Half orc bonus or something else if you really want to blast. We just wanted to possibly eliminate wizards dipping 1 sorc level and getting +2/dice for any spell.
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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 22:15:52 GMT -7
I do fear that Animate dead just may be way to strong for our setting. It lets casters have personal fast healing immortal martials.
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Post by dragonus45 on Jan 30, 2015 23:10:09 GMT -7
I noticed a line about retraining for martial characters for the Path of War, what is the line for that? The character I feel it makes the most sense for is a melee character and is a kensai with reduced casting when the Path of War is available I would like to retrain him. Would being a Magus disqualify him from that?
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Post by wizardfrog on Jan 30, 2015 23:16:44 GMT -7
Its possible we could extend this to other martial focused partial casters.
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Ash
Approvals
This world is only big enough for one loli.
Posts: 277
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Post by Ash on Jan 30, 2015 23:30:14 GMT -7
Ash the idea is if you are a pure sorceror you can get +1/dice/sorceror level and add the Half orc bonus or something else if you really want to blast. We just wanted to possibly eliminate wizards dipping 1 sorc level and getting +2/dice for any spell. The entire point of dipping is to gain a bonus for your specific build, restricting it to pure sorcerers only limits player options, which seems to contradict most of your arguments for allowing SLAs to grant early access to prestige classes. |
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