Proposal: Arcane Power

Ozymandias79 · Jul 22, 2009

good then that we don't use those backgrounds

ozy

elecgraystone · Jul 22, 2009

renau1g said:
As for what order things would go in, your background is always first because well...it's your origin. Then you learn your moves/feats/powers.

This I don't agree with. Backgrounds aren't that narrow. Occupations are a valid background. Now consider this. Did you join the Military because you could fight or did you learn to fight in the military?

Second point. The game only says that your first level character have 1 feat. It never says WHEN you got the feat. It could be BEFORE you got to first.

3rd point. If you the background first, you make some characters feat picks not make sense. Lets say i make up a character that in his youth was moved around a lot by his gypsy like parents. On his travels he finds a wizard, gets him to train him and he becomes one himself. Now he wants to take linguist since he traveled all over but he didn't get his feat until he finished his wizard training. So when he got his feat, he had no opportunity to learn more languages.

Sometimes the feat picks are as much about your characters background as the actual background itself. Born an eagle eye'd scout [skill focus or alertness], always scampering up trees [sure climber] or quickly picked up skills [jack of all trades]. Forcing the background before feats also forces the character to tell his story a certain way that isn't very good.

renau1g · Jul 22, 2009

Well...fluff-wise sure, but in the CB (WOTC's official character builder) backgrounds are first, and as evidenced by the Akanul/familiar situation calculated first.

elecgraystone · Jul 22, 2009

renau1g said:
Well...fluff-wise sure, but in the CB (WOTC's official character builder) backgrounds are first, and as evidenced by the Akanul/familiar situation calculated first.

LOL Well I couldn't give a flying fudge about the CB.

I can't use it and there isn't any evidence that you HAVE to take background first just that that's the way the CB does it. It could be that it's just easier for it to always assume it's first [since it can add trained skills it makes sense they'd do this].

Unless you have an actual in print quote 'background effects come first then feats', I'm going to have to go with a fluid approach. If I want my father to teach my character how to use the longsword BEFORE I head off to be a wizards apprentice, I don't see the CB stopping that.

renau1g · Jul 22, 2009

Any reason you can't use it? I know I had some issues as well at first. It's been an invaluable tool for me.

elecgraystone · Jul 22, 2009

renau1g said:
Any reason you can't use it? I know I had some issues as well at first. It's been an invaluable tool for me.

I'm unable to log in to WOTC sites as my password in invalid. After WOTC's wonderful staff fixed the problem, I was able to log in once before my password was invalid again. When WOTC send me an e-mail telling me they were going to shut down my account because of inactivity. I replied that that wasn't surprising because there site wouldn't let me in.

Their reply? Sorry, we sent you the e-mail by mistake and you're active! Go have fun on out site. :rant:

I wouldn't trust those guys to pick up my trash! I'll NEVER give them my credit card info! :rant:

Malanore · Jul 23, 2009

Just clarifying because it was argued but I didn't see a mention of it in the official proposal, what are we doing with Storm Pillar? I think that should be clarified as well when voted on.

Dunamin · Jul 23, 2009

So just to get an overview (because I haven't been following the discussions closely), what are remaining disputed elements of the book?

Skimming this thread, I gather that the focus is on:

Storm Pillar (Wizard At-Will 1)
Grease (Wizard Daily 1)
Illusory Wall (Wizard Utility 10)
Planar Gateway (Bonded Summoner Encounter 11 [Wizard Paragon Path])
"Stacking order" in case of two sources that either give you value X resistance or value +Y if you already have it (ie. Akunal Background and Book Imp familiar).

Anything else under consideration? These are my thoughts on the listed points:

1. Storm Pillar looks ok to me.

2. For Grease I prefer this:

elecgraystone said:
I'd keep the spell as written with the following line added to the miss line. "This movement does not trigger another attack form the Grease spell.

3. For Illusory Wall I prefer this:

JoeNotCharles said:
Illusory Wall: change "on its current turn, but it can try again on later turns" to "until it is attacked again and missed".

4. For Planar Gateway I prefer this:

JoeNotCharles said:
Planar Gateway: Add "Once per encounter" before "You may make the following attack..."

5. As seems to be the consensus, I favor that we let players decide the order in which such character options apply for now. Based on this, I'm thinking there'll soon be an Arcane Power update to clarify.

However, while I appreciate the attempts to "fix" some of these elements, this also feels very similar to our attempts to fix Battlerager Vigor with Martial Power. Like we did in that case, I'm also fine with just omitting elements 2-4 until their issues have been adressed in an update.