Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
Hey, no harm, no foul. I went ahead and edited the stuff out of both your post and my response to it.nak9788 said:
Back to the greenbond!
Daniel
What have i missed about Greenbound Summoning?
Back to the greenbond!
Daniel
two
First Post
If it's true spell effects go away after the summons disappear
That helps a little.
I mean.
Kinda.
Still, it makes an extended Summon Nature's Ally at low levels very nice.
By level 4 you can get a Wall of Thorns that lasts 8 rounds. Maybe 2 or 3 of them even!
By level 6 you don't really have to extend them anymore. Most battles will be over in 6 rounds, particularly after the enemy is struggling with walls of thorns left, right, and center.
A greenbound troll hunting a PC party in the forest would be a horrific thing to have to face. Predator, anyone? Battle of attrition all the way... just scary. You should throw one of those guy up against a high level party sometime, play the troll to the max... see what the party comes up with. Might be fun. +16 to hide is, well...VERY nice. So it pass without trace. So is entangle at will.
That helps a little.
I mean.
Kinda.
Still, it makes an extended Summon Nature's Ally at low levels very nice.
By level 4 you can get a Wall of Thorns that lasts 8 rounds. Maybe 2 or 3 of them even!
By level 6 you don't really have to extend them anymore. Most battles will be over in 6 rounds, particularly after the enemy is struggling with walls of thorns left, right, and center.
A greenbound troll hunting a PC party in the forest would be a horrific thing to have to face. Predator, anyone? Battle of attrition all the way... just scary. You should throw one of those guy up against a high level party sometime, play the troll to the max... see what the party comes up with. Might be fun. +16 to hide is, well...VERY nice. So it pass without trace. So is entangle at will.
beaver1024
First Post
Why are you guys acting so surprised? This is a druid feat. Everyone knows the clercis and druids are the designers' pet classes. This is the equivalent of Divine Metamagic but for druids.
Sigh... more nonsense about things being "broken." That word is very annoying.
The feat makes sense to me, mainly because it's in the "Lost Empires" of Faerun. Stuff is lost for a reason. It's an ancient form of magic, therefore its going to be powerful. I believe the intended purpose of the feat is to give druids something to quest for. I firmly believe that if, over time, the druid works hard to locate the secrets of the spell, he should get it.
The feat makes sense to me, mainly because it's in the "Lost Empires" of Faerun. Stuff is lost for a reason. It's an ancient form of magic, therefore its going to be powerful. I believe the intended purpose of the feat is to give druids something to quest for. I firmly believe that if, over time, the druid works hard to locate the secrets of the spell, he should get it.
two
First Post
Ero Gaki said:
Granted, "broken" is annoying. Just replace it with "powerful enough to make things not fun." Does that help you at all?
If you balance the feat with a long arduous quest full of sacrifice and etc. then I suppose it might be balanced. It's little different from a quest to gain a powerful artifact, after all. That's cool.
I don't think the original poster is in this situation. The original poster was looking around for a feat to take, came across this one, and thought it looked very powerful. It is. Or perhaps the original poster is a GM and is wondering if he/she should allow a player to take it.
Whichever -- WOTC could have done the reasonable thing and added a single line of text which (as you suggested) indicated the power level of the feat, something like:
"This is a very powerful feat and should only be taken with GM guidance and approval" something like that.
To simply list it as a feat a player can take, with no prerequisites (for a druid, at least), is daffy at best.
Believe it or not, some things DO make the game less fun (for everyone) because they are overwhelmingly powerful. A dedicated Greenbound Summoning druid can, at the cost of a feat, summon creatures many times more powerful than is normal at whatever druid level the druid happens to be at. This could make encounters trivially easy, annoy the GM, and equally importantly make the other PC's in the party feel like a 3rd wheel.
It's not fun when it's always the Druid, all the time.
To Sum: if the "intended purpose of the feat is to give druids something to quest for", they should do the obvious thing and, well, state that.
Possible scenario, feat taken without quest:
Party: Oh boy we levelled up!
Rogue: I'm taking "dodge."
Fighter: I'm taking "cleave."
Barbarian: I'm taking weapon focus.
Druid: I'm taking Greenbound Summoning.
Rest of party: huh?
GM: [hold head in hands...] good lord, what is THAT?
[... three combat sessions later]
Rogue: Hey, your summoned creatures done yet?
Fighter: Are they STILL stuck in them thorns?
Barbarian: Want me to hack away at them some?
Druid: [nonchalant] No, My guys got it covered. Or I'll blow another 2nd level spell and really wipe the floor with them.
GM: [holds head in hands]... good lord, how do I make it end? [plots nerfing of Greenbound Summoning]
You have some good points, Two. I suppose modifying the feat would be appropiate. Change it to something like "can only be used x amount of times in a day." I am generally against "nerfing," so I try to modify things without utterly screwing them.
My problem with "broken" is that too many DM's these days glance at something, say "oh look, that gives an advantage, it therefore must be broken." Granted, the greenbound summoning feat gives a huge advantage, but that doesn't mean it is broken, it simply means that the DM should use caution with it.
Normally, I wouldn't agree with there being a line saying "this feat should only be used with GM guidance and approval;" that just seems like common sense. But, seeing as many a GM that I've met lacks common sense and the ability to adjust things, it does seem like a good addition.
My problem with "broken" is that too many DM's these days glance at something, say "oh look, that gives an advantage, it therefore must be broken." Granted, the greenbound summoning feat gives a huge advantage, but that doesn't mean it is broken, it simply means that the DM should use caution with it.
Normally, I wouldn't agree with there being a line saying "this feat should only be used with GM guidance and approval;" that just seems like common sense. But, seeing as many a GM that I've met lacks common sense and the ability to adjust things, it does seem like a good addition.
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
Ero Gaki said:
Why am I paying the game designer?
I do not need to pay good money for a game designer to spew out half-baked interesting ideas. I can easily do that myself or find those on the web for free on a lunch break. I am perfectly capable of analyzing the power level a feat and tuning it. And I am perfectly capable of coming up with cool powerful feat ideas that need tuning during my morning commute.
I am paying the game designer so I may choose the luxury of being lazy when and if I want to. The game designer should do the hard work, so I can do the fun stuff because I do not have the time to do everything right myself.
If a designer tosses a feat like Greenbound Summoning into a book with bothering to put its power level in context, be it through hard prerequisites or just flavor text, he is doing the easy & fun stuff and leaving the drudgery to me.
A feat that leaves me to do the heavy lifting is "broken". Broken because I cannot use it as is without doing the real work. That seems like common sense to me.
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