Adventurer's Vault 2 Playtest

[knasser]

Do these orbs require a hit roll? Because quite frankly, I find the image of the party wizard vanishing and leaving behind a bunch of unopposed monsters during the final BBEG battle hilarious. Or even better - a leader, striker or controller suddenly finding themselves plunged into a cage fight with no party and a whole bunch of critters.

Oh, okay - I know the orbs wont work like this, but it would provide some hilarious "oops" moments.

K.

 

[Aloïsius]

Some ideas for the orbs :

* what is killed in the orb stay in the orb, forever. Including its stuff. You can be sure PC won't abuse it, now

* what is killed in the orb stay in the orb, once more. Or rather, it will be there the next time you enter the orb. Alive an kicking. After a few uses, PCs will hesitate to use it...

* the orb stay "in real world". If someone destroy it, everything inside is freed and take 8d6 force damage

* those orbs comes in pair. When one is used, the resulting scene is visible in the other. And the spectator can affect the creatures in the other orb with his own spells of he wants (but the reverse is not true). No one said the other orb owner is your friend...

I'm sure there are many ways to make those things cooler and balanced...

 

[Orcus Porkus]

* what is killed in the orb stay in the orb, once more. Or rather, it will be there the next time you enter the orb. Alive an kicking. After a few uses, PCs will hesitate to use it...

Why alive? How about rotting. The stench deals 1d10 ongoing damage (no save).

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Oh there are plenty of ways to balance them in the end, but as presented now they are anything but balanced.

The terrain control isn't the issue, its the ability to strategically split encounters into smaller chunks that is the issue mostly, all for "free" relatively.

 

[keterys]

They're a very cool idea... but how about some way for targets to resist? Be it via attack roll, save, taking an action to exit, sustain costing something, _anything_

I do wonder what the reaction would be of PCs to monsters with this ability.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

They're a very cool idea... but how about some way for targets to resist? Be it via attack roll, save, taking an action to exit, sustain costing something, _anything_

I do wonder what the reaction would be of PCs to monsters with this ability.

Yes, an escape route would be nice. Maybe the Orb in the hand of the Wizard beings to sparkle and everyone knows that its him. And if you attack the Orb Wielder (or the Orb), you can choose to break the effect.

Or maybe the effect requires Sustain: Standard instead of Sustain: Minor.

 

[Solodan]

I would agree with the orb statements:

It does need an attack roll - anything auto-hit sounds really really bad.

It should be sustain standard - its a sick, powerful effect.

It would be better as an expensive consumable - I'd get tired of this if every RPGA event after level 20 I could predict 1 or 2 encounters. And how does one even write for these types of things?

I would just prefer them to not be published, but whatever.

 

[James McMurray]

I do wonder what the reaction would be of PCs to monsters with this ability.

I'd guess a little bit of "huh?" followed by "beat its ass!" The GM usually determines the terrain anyway, so having it set because the monster can snap its fingers rather than because they tracked the monster to a room isn't that big of a paradigm shift for how 4e functions. Switching from "terrain is so important we're dedicating an entire DMG chapter to it" to "here's a tiny box that 4/5 of your encounters will happen in" is a much more jarring change.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Technically, there is a way for the monsters to escape ... beat up the wizard. The wizard isn't going to have many places to hide, he's in pretty close quarters. And, if you stun the wizard ... it IS going to end. If you daze the wizard, he has to use his minor to sustain that effect. If you knock the wizard unconcious, again, they have to get the wizard concious ASAP or they'll be booted out of the orb., Etc, etc, etc ... The wizard that brings everyone into the orb becomes target number one ... and it isn't exactly hard to get to him n a 5x5 "room".

The wizard taking a pounding (not to mention reducing his own ability to sustain other zone effects) might make the wizard think twice about using the orb constantly.

 

[Acarg51]

Technically, there is a way for the monsters to escape ... beat up the wizard. The wizard isn't going to have many places to hide, he's in pretty close quarters. And, if you stun the wizard ... it IS going to end. If you daze the wizard, he has to use his minor to sustain that effect. If you knock the wizard unconcious, again, they have to get the wizard concious ASAP or they'll be booted out of the orb., Etc, etc, etc ... The wizard that brings everyone into the orb becomes target number one ... and it isn't exactly hard to get to him n a 5x5 "room".

This is the drawback and, in my opinion, a pretty large balancing factor -- stuck in a 5x5 room is just about the last place I want my wizard to be. Especially when it's filled with terrain that limits my manuverability.