Abrupt Jaunt alt. wizard class feature, PHBII pg. 70

[Nifft]

It's powerful for a 1st level ability. It's not that powerful at higher levels. You could mitigate by allowing at most 1 jaunt per class or caster level.

Escaping from a force cage as an Immediate action isn't broken? Getting through a wall of force (or any other wall) isn't awesome? Getting out of range of a harm isn't powerful? Ducking behind cover to avoid a dimensional anchor ray isn't strong?

At 1st level you can ruin Charge attacks. At higher levels you can negate many more kinds of effects -- because you'll be facing many more kinds of effects.

IMHO this ability starts overpowered and stays that way.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Stormtower]

Seems others feel similarly to myself about this one. IMO it's quite overpowered and introduces some odd vagueness in certain situations. I think Aestolia's take on it - 50% miss chance for an attack if the jaunt is used to avoid such, or 100% miss chance on a readied action. Heck, I have no problem with this ability at all if it's used when readied. Go right ahead and ready that action... it means your wizard isn't casting spells that round, or doing much else really.

Nifft's and Mistwell's examples of using the jaunt to escape Force Cage, grapple et. al. are even worse. I hate banning stuff (wraithstrike excepted, oh yes indeed) but this one may need the ban hammer. I love all the options that the alt class features add, but I don't want to start an arms race with my players here... we've already had the wraithstrike conversation.

Now Eamon suggests that the attacker, whose attack is jaunted away from, can immediately and without error re-target a different square in response to the (immediate action/interrupt) jaunt. Can you reference other immediate effects that allow the PC/monster to change his action after the interrupt?

Thanks for the feedback, folks.

 

[Aestolia]

I think Aestolia's take on it - 50% miss chance for an attack if the jaunt is used to avoid such, or 100% miss chance on a readied action.

The way I see it, if power or use of an ability is in question, find the next closest thing to see if it has any more info on it.

Flicker works pretty much exactly like Jaunt... I'm not necessarily saying it's balanced, just that there's some precedence for written rule on it.

Less Mark of Passage in Eberron can do the same thing--if you pump some extra feats into it.

Another comparable mechanic is Blink, it's not quite the same, but does give the 50% example.

 

[Mistwell]

Escaping from a force cage as an Immediate action isn't broken? Getting through a wall of force (or any other wall) isn't awesome? Getting out of range of a harm isn't powerful? Ducking behind cover to avoid a dimensional anchor ray isn't strong?

At 1st level you can ruin Charge attacks. At higher levels you can negate many more kinds of effects -- because you'll be facing many more kinds of effects.

IMHO this ability starts overpowered and stays that way.

Cheers, -- N

I believe you must have line of sight, so you cannot do some of those things.

 

[RangerWickett]

The revision that I agreed to work into the initially overpowered low-level teleport spell in War of the Burning Sky was that you couldn't pass through any barrier that would stop your movement normally. You could hop over chasms or up cliffs, but not through cell doors.

An easy solution for abrupt jaunt is to have it make the teleporter dazed one round after he jaunts.

 

[brehobit]

The revision that I agreed to work into the initially overpowered low-level teleport spell in War of the Burning Sky was that you couldn't pass through any barrier that would stop your movement normally. You could hop over chasms or up cliffs, but not through cell doors.

An easy solution for abrupt jaunt is to have it make the teleporter dazed one round after he jaunts.

This I like. Keeps the power, lets it do crazy things, but with a cost. Still very powerful, but not unreasonable IMO.

Mark

 

[Stormtower]

The revision that I agreed to work into the initially overpowered low-level teleport spell in War of the Burning Sky was that you couldn't pass through any barrier that would stop your movement normally. You could hop over chasms or up cliffs, but not through cell doors.

An easy solution for abrupt jaunt is to have it make the teleporter dazed one round after he jaunts.

I like it. This seems appropriately balanced; in effect the conjurer is trading his next round's action to counter an enemy attack with a 100% success rate, essentially giving and action for an action.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I like that mod as well.

Hope they keep stuff like this in 4Ed...with appropriate balance as well.

 

[eamon]

Why would you not be able to retarget? You can interrupt game flow with your immediate action, but in general, the game just flows on afterwards. Certain immediate actions specify that they have consequences for the interrupted action, such as those meant to disturb or counter some other activity. In general though, that's not the case, right?

In any case, I don't see any real problem with allowing it, and doing so means that immediate actions are less likely to be "accidentally" powerful - such as this jaunt ability. An ability which does cause your opponents to waste actions would be much more powerful, and would perhaps be worth "dazing" yourself next round - a fine ability, but more in-your-face than the less extreme variant.

I still think that the ability is a little powerful, and would add the limitation (seems obvious) that you need line of sight to your new location.

I'm considering this alternative because it's less invasive than simply rendering the caster dazed. Further, compared to a sorcerer, all these abilities are rather flimsy compared to the sorcerer's gain which is to enable normal-speed meta-magic - an extremely useful ability, rendering metamagic far more powerful for the sorcerer than for the wizard.

Then there's the fact that the wizard's power is largely due to his extreme flexibility. An ability like the jaunt, even if powerful, doesn't really make the wizard any more "over-the-top". I like reserve feats and this sort of alternative class ability since they help de-emphasizing the "nova" part of the wizard. I do think they're indeed a little weak, most of them, with certain exceptions (such as the jaunt).

I'd prefer a less invasive restriction of the jaunt, which preserve the defensive advantages (which are by nature unlikely to break the game), but don't penalize enemies as heavily (i.e. their actions are not wasted intrinsically).

Many wizards successfully avoid all attacks in a session. Since that's so, I don't think this ability will be extremely powerful as long as it's not used as a weapon (i.e., the enemies shouldn't be penalized too badly).

Course, it's a matter of taste.

 

[Andion Isurand]

Possible revisions to start with.

Adding a 50% miss chance as described above, when done in response to an attack.

You have to wait 1d4 rounds before the ability can be used again.

You can Jaunt up to 10 ft. per day + 5 ft. for every 2 class levels you obtain. (if you want Juants of variable distance)

You can Jaunt no more than 1/day for every 2 class levels you obtain (minimum 1, maximum equal to your Intelligence modifier).
------ (or) ------
You can Jaunt a number of times per day equal to the spell level of the highest level arcane spell you can prepare (maximum equal to your Intelligence modifier).