It's me again, making another proposal for a Dragon Magazine; this time for issue 374. I decided not to be lazy this time. Issue 374 covers the following:
* Character Concepts: Arcane Characters (Doesn't really need to be voted on since it's only a couple of pregenerated characters)
* Playtest: Players Handbook 3 Hybrid Characters(The first rendition of their rules for Hybrid Characters; got a ton of bad reception on the WOTC boards. I suggest we disallow these rules)
* White Lotus Accademy(A nice description of a random magic accademy and includes the following:
* Ampersand, Design and Development, Confessions of a Full-Time Wizard, and RPGA Report: (Ongoing featured articles, all fluff/description, no crunch; nothing to vote on)
* Get Familiar (Extra familiars, familiar feats, and another Paragon Path: Familiar Keeper)
* Ecology of the Deva(Lots of good fluff, and the following crunch):
Posting to watch; I don't have anything substantial to contribute at the moment. Except that I think I read the Get Familiar article a while ago and thought it was ok.
Yes, actually. The familiar article did come out before AP did. It was weird.
LOL In an odd way it makes sense to me. Make an article with some cool familiar in it, but if you want to USE them you need to buy the Arcane. Go buy our book quick! It's out soon!
Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoHeadsBarking
The recent Eberron familiars article follows the trend by frequently referencing information in the AV2 and DMG2.
I find it mildly annoying when they do this. As long as the mechanics can still be used, I'll be happy though. Eberron familiars sound cool!
Note: I'd recommend linking to the final version of the magazine as opposed to the individual articles because sometimes there's been changes to the article going to the final version.
I don't think it's too common, but I can vaguely remember it happening once.
Actually, it used to be quite common. Back when I got dragon, I think every one had some change from individual articles and the final version, usually do to feedback. That's why I got in the habit of deleting off the old articles when I got the final version so I wouldn't get the wrong info.
Yeah, but I think they are getting a bit better with it now.
It may be true that aren't changing as much now. I haven't sen the articles since it went pay. If it's true though, I'd be a bit disappointed. It'd mean that are paying as much attention to player feedback.
I don't like the approach of most of this. All this modification of ALL your at-wills, instead of making a particular at-will better. I don't know if it's actually unbalanced, it just rubs me the wrong way. Master's Surge I especially don't like - too much scope for unintended side effects when adding "save ends" to ANY encounter power.
Punishing Eye's already been dropped from the Compendium (thanks for the announcement, Wizards!) and we should too. We don't allow Artificers yet anyway.
I don't recall anything I didn't like about the powers, but I'm inclined to vote against the whole article just for simplicity.
Get Familiar
A lot of these familiars use the same wording for resistances as the Book Imp, which I just brought up in the AP thread. Other than that, I don't see any issues.
Ecology of the Deva
It's kind of weird which feats are for Deva only and which are Deva or Deva Heritage. I think I'd be ok with opening up everything that doesn't depend on Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes to Deva Heritage, unless someone can point out something unbalancing.
On the other hand, the stuff that modifies Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes makes an already-great power even better. I thought it was way too good when I saw it in PHB2, but I guess my sense of balance must be severely broken since nobody else seemed to have a problem.
Prince of Frost
Deeper Chill says: "When you spend an action point, make an attack that has the cold keyword." Does that mean as well as the action you get for spending the AP, or does should it be, "When you spend an action point to make an attack..."
Well, convince me that I'm being too pessimistic, then
That's going to be hard since you don't like the premise. I'll give it a go them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeNotCharles
All this modification of ALL your at-wills, instead of making a particular at-will better. I don't know if it's actually unbalanced, it just rubs me the wrong way.
I can try to show balance, but your feelings about the powers?
As far as modifying all at-wills, this isn't that strange. There are already feats that can modify ALL your powers, so this is much narrower than that. Let me point out two feats to illustrate. Nimble spellcaster and Phantom Echoes [both in arcane book].
Make a hafling wizard or sorcerer with the Nimble Spellcaster feat and take all area attack spells [both classes can do it]. ALL your spells [not just at wills like the White Lotus Academy] ignore OA from those you hit.
Make an illusionist with Phantom Echos. All your illusion spells [it SHOULD be ALL of them] make the target grant you CA. ALL your spells [not just at wills like the White Lotus Academy] grant CA from those you hit.
I don't see how boosting a narrow set of powers [at wills] would be an issue in light of feats that boost ALL your powers.
As far as masters surge, I can't think of any 'unintended side effects when adding "save ends" to ANY encounter power'. If someone could give my an example of something they think is unbalanced, I would appreciate it.
Punishing eye was a good idea, but VERY poorly done. No sustain just lasts all encounter? Auto hits? This could have been fixed easily. Add sustain: minor. Remove 'when an ally attacks an enemy within 3 squares of the eye and hits, that enemy takes psychic damage equal to your Intelligence modifier.' and replace with 'when an ally attacks an enemy within 3 squares of the eye and hits, you may also attack that enemy as an immediate reaction,close burst 3, target hit by ally, Int vs REF, CON or WIS bonus damage.'
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