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There really isn't any book keeping required - you know how many healing surges you start the day with, you know how many you have left. Subtract 1 from the other and you know how many you have used.
Do you remember how many times that wight hit you with its claw attack?
If the only way to decrease your stack of healing surges was to expend them, I'd agree with you entirely. It's not, so I don't.
They allow the players to replace the DMs carefully crafted encounter layout. If the PCs have one that is tactically advantageous to them, then you risk every fight occuring in exactly the same environment, which can only be tedious.
They allow the breaking of fights into small chunks, destroying any synergy between the creatures in an encounter.
Previously, a defender would have to strike a balance between his survivability and his tarbaby qualities. Now he can ditch the tarbaby side and take this item, then stack his defenses with all the rest of his resources.
Alternately: who needs a defender? The party can just split up and each take out whatever they're the counter to.
If the only way to decrease your stack of healing surges was to expend them, I'd agree with you entirely. It's not, so I don't.
I guess a better way to design the tattoos is to based the effects off of the number of surges you've spent or lost that day. (Is there a word that means spent/lost?)
Quote:
They allow the players to replace the DMs carefully crafted encounter layout. If the PCs have one that is tactically advantageous to them, then you risk every fight occuring in exactly the same environment, which can only be tedious.
The good news is the transport power is only usable once per day. As long as the party has more than one encounter per day, then they won't all be like that.
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The good news is the transport power is only usable once per day. As long as the party has more than one encounter per day, then they won't all be like that.
What's stopping the party from acquiring more than 1? Say each PC has 1, this means they can use it once/encounter, for 5 encounters. Especially at epic levels, this sort of thing would be fairly inexpensive relative to the amount of gold you have. Seems that at higher levels, each PC should have little problem affording multiple copies of said item...
Implements specify that in order to use any powers or properties of the item you must be of a class that uses that implement
Oh, so it is an implement...
Still, there is the problem of that 1 PC hoarding multiple copies (and money is not necessarily an issue - the other PCs can chip in to buy orbs of their own for him...
Granted, he can't use any of his other dailies, but this effect is really reminiscent of 3e's forcecage/maze spells (which were extremely powerful)...
They only need one. Sure, they can't use it every encounter, but the threat of every encounter turning into an orb farce means the GM is less likely to bother trying for synergy between monsters and/or their environment. If the party does get more orbs, it just gets worse.
They allow the players to replace the DMs carefully crafted encounter layout. If the PCs have one that is tactically advantageous to them, then you risk every fight occuring in exactly the same environment, which can only be tedious.
They allow the breaking of fights into small chunks, destroying any synergy between the creatures in an encounter.
Previously, a defender would have to strike a balance between his survivability and his tarbaby qualities. Now he can ditch the tarbaby side and take this item, then stack his defenses with all the rest of his resources.
Alternately: who needs a defender? The party can just split up and each take out whatever they're the counter to.
The article on Orbs points out that DM should include those at their own discretion. Basically it is a lot like the Monster Manual races, it's something that is earmarked as "something you may not want to allow as a DM".
If you do allow it, keep it in mind. Artificer with the ability to recharge a daily item power at every milestone (and can use orbs as an implement) could be ridiculous with one of these things. However, it is really up to a DM whether to allow these things into the game, and could very well have these be extremely rare (i.e. you can't make or buy them ... you may be given one).
Also, these don't actually pop up until the high paragon tier.
Do you remember how many times that wight hit you with its claw attack?
If the only way to decrease your stack of healing surges was to expend them, I'd agree with you entirely. It's not, so I don't.
However, if you:
(a) Have one of these tatoos, and thus know you have to track the number of surges you spend each day
(b) Are fighting a monster that drains your surges (or have a disease, or a lost a surge some other way
THEN, you have to track how many you actually spent. At that point you have to do some book keeping. It's not a lot, it's in very specific situations (rarely does something cost a surge without you spending it) and you know you have a magic item that cares about tracking that stuff anyway.
It would be a problem if you found out after the fact that you needed to keep track of it, and you didn't. But since this is an item you choose to take, and have with you contsantly, it shouldn't be an issue of forgetting to book keep for it while fighting wights.
The article on Orbs points out that DM should include those at their own discretion. Basically it is a lot like the Monster Manual races, it's something that is earmarked as "something you may not want to allow as a DM".
Is there a reason why material presumably balanced for PC usage still requires a standard disclaimer that it might upset the game?
Well in this case because its a playtest article....
The orbs are a problematic item and need to be taken back to the drawing board I think. Sustain Minor to remove burst 2 worth of enemies and allies from a battle is just to good, as it swings the whole battle, quite selectively in the PC's favor. As it stands at that point I might as well stop designing encounters. (Yes that's a little melodramatic, but the effect is way to over the top.)
High Paragon/Epic characters can do enough funky stuff already without the addition of utter control over the battlefield when they want.
1) Shouldn't this better be a class power instead of a magical item?
I find the option interesting, but it seems so unique and strong that it looks "wrong" to have it merely in a power.
Alternatively: Make it an artifact power.
2) How about this option only gets available after one milestone?
This provides a further limit on how often it can be used.
You might want a lessened effect without this prerequisite. Maybe a part of the terrain manifests in the current encounter area (terrain becoming difficult or challening for example)
Or maybe a single creature in the burst is teleported away for one round (or save ends).
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Well in this case because its a playtest article....
The orbs are a problematic item and need to be taken back to the drawing board I think. Sustain Minor to remove burst 2 worth of enemies and allies from a battle is just to good, as it swings the whole battle, quite selectively in the PC's favor. As it stands at that point I might as well stop designing encounters. (Yes that's a little melodramatic, but the effect is way to over the top.)
There is a callout in the description of the orbs about its game changing dynamics, similar to the warning about allowing the MM races.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragon 270 Playtest AV2
These items can render lovingly-crafted set pieces less memorable, and DMs should consider that before allowing an orb of sequestered conflict in the game.
So it is safe to say that this is something they are aware of. I think it has been released as playtest material specifically because they like the idea, but are worried about the ingame effect of the these type of items. Although with the manouverability of high level characters and monsters, getting a group of pc's and monsters in a 5 x 5 square to jump this on them could be difficult at best.
Also, there is what looks like an editting tag on the Orb of Sequestered Gossamer calling out low accuracy.
Orbs: Yikes, this sounds extremely cool at first but how often do you want to fight in the same 5x5 square? Basically, you're dooming your playgroup to play on in the same tile once every time you gather together....
Tattoos: This is actually really cool, most of them aren't very strong (Exception, Tat of the unlucky and Reaping Strike, very sick very fast) but they help encourage the party not to take an extended rest.
As a DM who's been through my share of ideas that sounded unbelievably awesome at first but quickly got first stale and then sour through repetition, I can say that the orbs sound like a terrible idea. Just terrible. It could work as an expensive one-use consumable item, but as a permanent item power? No way.
Of course, they seem awesome now, but wait til you're on your 7th or 8th or so hand-built encounter that gets deflected into an orb. Won't seem so nifty then I can assure you. This is literally the kind of stuff that designers are supposed to be there to make sure you don't end up putting into your game.
Doesn't matter that it's a Daily item use, it's going to come up at *least* once every single game session, which is enough for it to completely take over the feel of the campaign and become a running gag to the players.
I'd like to hope that these things don't make it into the final version of the AV 2, but I have a pretty good feeling that these things aren't so much 'playtests' as they are straight 'previews' of what the book is going to be.
Last edited by Harr; 11th December 2008 at 04:01 PM..
Although with the manouverability of high level characters and monsters, getting a group of pc's and monsters in a 5 x 5 square to jump this on them could be difficult at best.
Far from hard, it's incredibly easy. All you need do is have the party delay so they're all going together, then use the multitude of powers that move people around. Finally the guy with the orb takes his turn.
A buddy slapping dimensional shackles on you just prior to activation is optional, but goes even further towards destroying encounters. I know I'd give up two standard actions to remove most of the enemies from the battle until I decided they could come back.
There really isn't any book keeping required - you know how many healing surges you start the day with, you know how many you have left. Subtract 1 from the other and you know how many you have used.
Or you could count up. That's how I manage my character sheet, I add a tick mark for each surges expended.
The tattoos are really nice, I like the ones that improve as you expend surges.
I'm not keen on the Orbs of Sequestered Conflict, but I'll admit the concept is cool. More of an Artifact thing though.
Is there a reason why material presumably balanced for PC usage still requires a standard disclaimer that it might upset the game?
Because the reason it might upset the game has more to do with it upsetting the DM's plans than the actual gameplay. When this power is given to PCs, suddenly the DM is giving them a bit of control in terms of terrain, and the ability to divide and conquer a battle once per day. The ability to severely nerf elaborate terrain design plans may not be something a DM wants to do. (At the same time, I've seen a few cases where the fights end up in the "entrance" to an encounter, allowing all the cool terrain features to add up to nothing at all, so it doesn't need an orb to pull that off.)
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