New Haste - Does it Fix Your Concerns?

Victim · Jan 28, 2003

MerricB said:
Think of it this way:

Haste allows you to act faster, such as swinging a sword blade, or opening a tap.

But the water flowing from that tap (magic) remains at the same speed. Thus magic can't be cast any faster because you have to rely on its internal rules rather than the rules of how fast your body is moving.

Cheers!

And there are just as many possible justifications for Haste affecting spellcasting, or loop holes in that world view that would allow to make descriptive, rather than rules based arguments pointless.

Magic comes from the tap at the same speed, but with Haste, you can open 2 taps in the time it took to open one and still turn them off fast enough to prevent overflowing.

Sir Whiskers · Jan 28, 2003

Based solely on the news item posted on this site:

I have no problem with the proposed change, but I'll probably house-rule it to allow the character either an extra attack or an extra move-equivalent action. To me, haste means the character is moving more quickly, but the new rules don't seem to reflect this.

As for two spells per round, I don't know that it was unbalanced, but it certainly made spellcasters much more powerful. A hasted high level cleric was truly dangerous ("See if you can survive TWO maximized flame strikes!") The new version is still useful, just not a "must-have" for spellcasters. With the old version, if the enemy spellcasters were hasted, could a party really afford not to be? Now it's not so critical and those spell slots can be used for something else.

Derren · Jan 28, 2003

I maybe will go a completely different way.
I will use the new haste an will either raise the AC bonus to +5 or double the move speed. Maybe both, depends on how it will work out.

As for the present haste, for me it is overpowered. I play in 3 groups and in every of these group more than the half of the players have some means to get haste. And I those who have no access to haste are a lot weaker then those with haste. The monster also get much more challenging with haste. (But in groups where nearly everyone has haste, the monsters must have it too or become a lot weaker)

Shard O'Glase · Jan 28, 2003

Derren said:
I maybe will go a completely different way.
I will use the new haste an will either raise the AC bonus to +5 or double the move speed. Maybe both, depends on how it will work out.

As for the present haste, for me it is overpowered. I play in 3 groups and in every of these group more than the half of the players have some means to get haste. And I those who have no access to haste are a lot weaker then those with haste. The monster also get much more challenging with haste. (But in groups where nearly everyone has haste, the monsters must have it too or become a lot weaker)

Now you'll just have everyone but arcane spellcasters with some way to get haste.

FreeTheSlaves · Jan 28, 2003

Yes!

This is very good news. I rather think that i would prefer haste to provide an extra move equivilent however, something for everyone.

rangerjohn · Jan 28, 2003

On a related note with no partial actions I guess surprise means nothing now? Tell me again why a spell caster is casting this spell? To let the fighter show him up even more? This is a 3rd level spell that is agurably weaker than bull's strength and its cousins at least they last an hour per caster level. Someone above sited haste as being to powerful because a cleric could cast two flamestrikes, its better for the cleric to be fully buffed and attacking three or four times?

Hygric · Jan 28, 2003

The only thing about the change to haste that concerns me is what is a sorcerer to do? They can't use quicken spell...

MerricB · Jan 28, 2003

Victim said:
And there are just as many possible justifications for Haste affecting spellcasting, or loop holes in that world view that would allow to make descriptive, rather than rules based arguments pointless.

Magic comes from the tap at the same speed, but with Haste, you can open 2 taps in the time it took to open one and still turn them off fast enough to prevent overflowing.

My example was just to show that you can work out a justification for why Haste should not affect spell-casting.

Cheers!

Plane Sailing · Jan 28, 2003

I think they have hit the nail on the head with the problem - as is, haste allows (effectively) free quickening of any level of spell - even 9th level spells! Far too good.

I might use the example they have, but I'll probably go with my own version of the spell (currently named "quickening"). The target gets tremendously increased speed, giving them +4 to AC, +4 to hit and +4 to reflex saves, as well as double movement speed. Everything else seems to be moving in slightly slow motion. Slow would do the reverse, imposing a -4 penalty to AC, to-hit and Reflex ST and half movement speed.

Cheers

MerricB · Jan 28, 2003

rangerjohn said:
On a related note with no partial actions I guess surprise means nothing now? Tell me again why a spell caster is casting this spell? To let the fighter show him up even more? This is a 3rd level spell that is agurably weaker than bull's strength and its cousins at least they last an hour per caster level. Someone above sited haste as being to powerful because a cleric could cast two flamestrikes, its better for the cleric to be fully buffed and attacking three or four times?

Instead of using the confusing terminology "Partial Action", I'm sure they'll just instead say "During a surprise round, you may take either a Move, Move Equivalent or Standard Action, but not a Full Round action". Ditto for how they'll run Zombies.

There are lots of spells that enhance characters apart from the magic-user. Just the +4 to AC makes it interesting for the wizard.

Cheers!

New Haste - Does it Fix Your Concerns?

Victim

First Post

Sir Whiskers

First Post

Derren

Hero

Shard O'Glase

First Post

FreeTheSlaves

Adventurer

rangerjohn

Explorer

Hygric

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MerricB

Eternal Optimist

Plane Sailing

Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!

MerricB

Eternal Optimist

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