Adventurer's Vault 2 Playtest

[fissionessence]

So, the AV2 playtest is up for insiders.

Included are 12 magical tattoos and 3 'orbs of sequestered conflict'. Magic tattoos can only be removed with disenchant magic item, and most of them become more powerful the more healing surges you've spent that day.

The orbs of sequestered conflict all transport you and creatures in a burst 2 within 2 to a 5-by-5 miniature universe inside of the orb; the terrain is different depending on which version you have. The gossamer orb's realm is filled with spider webs, the boneyard is a big red dragon skull pedestal surrounded by shifting bones, and the glacier is covered with ice and several stalactites and is obfuscated with mist. These orbs start at level 19~20.

So, do you think these tattoos will encourage players to play longer to take advantage of the 'how many healing surges have you used today?' powers, or do you think these items will be looked over for not supporting the 15-minute adventuring day?

As for the sequestered orbs . . . how can you break this crazy and awesome power?

~

 

[Gruns]

Not a subscriber but...

So, do you think these tattoos will encourage players to play longer to take advantage of the 'how many healing surges have you used today?' powers, or do you think these items will be looked over for not supporting the 15-minute adventuring day?

I think my group will ignore these due to their lameness factor. Magical tattoos are just a little too Oriental Adventures for us, I guess. Functionally, they sound ok. (Not a subscriber so I don't know exactly what they do.) Maybe we can find a more flavorful name for them... Dragonmarks or Runescars or... or...

As for the sequestered orbs . . . how can you break this crazy and awesome power?

As I'm not a DDI subscriber, I can't comment on them too much since I don't know too many details, but from what you mentioned they sound pretty cool. Not that my group will ever reach level 20....

Later!
Gruns

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

As for the sequestered orbs . . . how can you break this crazy and awesome power?

I would say a very good resource against artilleries (teleport away from them with your own friends and their allies) and also useful against skirmishers and lurkers (containg them to a limited area) and possibly flying opponents (they can't get far!) Soldiers and Brutes probalby don't mind having restricted area to work in. Controllers could go either way, depending on in if they are ranged or melee focused.

Generally, the ability to split the enemy groups and neutralize one side for a time should make the encounter a lot easier, even if you don't recover encounters and dailies. The job of Defenders gets easier if there are less opponents to bind.

 

[Mengu]

So, do you think these tattoos will encourage players to play longer to take advantage of the 'how many healing surges have you used today?' powers, or do you think these items will be looked over for not supporting the 15-minute adventuring day?

I like the idea of tattoos, I've already been using them for NPC's, but I'm glad there will be rules for them for PC's as well.

I don't have any problems with 15-minute adventuring days in my group. I think they would be quite happy with these rules for tattoos. I've run them down to zero surges on more than one occasion.

One concern I have is that they were trying to keep item slots minimal, and they just created a new slot. How many more slots will we see, and will the current treasure system support so many slots?

I'm also concerned about stacking. What happens when you have a Dragonborn (or Dwarf with dwarven durability) Warlord/Combat Veteran with decent constitution, a belt of vigor (gets even better with a Belt of Mountain Endurance at higher levels), and a Strongheart Tattoo? At 16th level, that's potentially +20 to healing surges in the middle of the adventuring day, and a +30 to healing surges at the end. When you have around 93 HP's, and a healing surge value of 23, that's almost doubling your healing surge, and then you start to add bonus dice from inspiring word and the like (4d6 by this time, not to mention any bonus from improved inspiring word), and you can basically heal up from a quarter hit points to almost full hit points with 1 surge.

I'm not sure if this is too powerful or not, but it certainly changes things a bit.

 

[WalterKovacs]

One thing I've found in DM'ing is that, sometimes a character may end up dying (at least for a turn) because they refuse to heal too early when there will be some "left over", not wanting to waste surges by "overhealing". So, if a character is able to heal more than their bloodied modifier with a single effect, they may end up avoiding healing most of the time to make the most of it.

I like the idea of the tatoos in that they are tied to action points and healing surges, and they are passive abilities for the most part. Gives the tatoos their "thing".

The orbs seem like a neat idea.

 

[Mort_Q]

The orbs seem like a neat idea.

I think the PCs should discover an orb from the inside. That'd be fun.

 

[Mengu]

One thing I've found in DM'ing is that, sometimes a character may end up dying (at least for a turn) because they refuse to heal too early when there will be some "left over", not wanting to waste surges by "overhealing". So, if a character is able to heal more than their bloodied modifier with a single effect, they may end up avoiding healing most of the time to make the most of it.

Indeed this can be a problem at low levels, many a time I've seen a Dragonborn get knocked over because he wanted to remain bloodied. But at higher levels, with a larger buffer, and with some help from temporary hit points, holding off on healing is less risky.

 

[James McMurray]

I like the idea of the orbs, but they're too easily broken. Anything that prevents you from teleporting turns them into a free monster "killer." Set it so you and a few enemies are in the burst, ignore the teleport on yourself, and then sustain it until you're ready to fight the guys you just disappeared.

Also, any fight where the monsters don't all bunch together means the party can run up to surround the big guy or sequester a few opponents, beat them while they're seperated, then heal up and pop back out. There will probably be an ambush waiting, but fighting a dragon and then its minions is a better proposition then fighting a dragon with its minions.

 

[Serphet]

ignore the teleport on yourself.

the way it's written, you can't do that. Just like you can't ignore friendlies in AoE spells.

 

[abyssaldeath]

Indeed this can be a problem at low levels, many a time I've seen a Dragonborn get knocked over because he wanted to remain bloodied. But at higher levels, with a larger buffer, and with some help from temporary hit points, holding off on healing is less risky.

With the waist item Cincture of Vivacity(level 14) holding off on healing is less likely because you get to keep those extra hit points that would be wasted as temporary hit points.