brehobit
Explorer
I always felt that James Wyatt is not only a very good writer, he is very good at game balance issues. The vast majority of BoED has allowed me to keep that very high opinion of him. However a few things seem a bit too powerful and I wanted to see if others agreed (or had anything else to add). As I wrote this list I think I've concluded that only the Luminous Armor spell and the Retributive amulet are really overpowered. The others are just on the high-end of their price point.
- Luminous armor spell -- If I get this you are looking at a +9 AC against melee attacks for 1 hour/level for a 2nd level spell slot and 1-2 points of STR damage (which another 2nd level spell could negate)
- The Blessed weapon ability (basically bless weapon spell always on) is really very nice for a +1 bonus (auto crits on any threat vs. evil)
- Enfeebling is huge for someone who has a good threat range. It does 1d6+2 STR damage on every critical for a +1 modifier. If the weapon is already keen look out.
- Probably the nastiest is the Retributive Amulet. It not only reduces all melee damage (from a nature or hand-held weapon, which I think is all melee damage?) by a factor of 2, it applies the absorbed damage to the attacker. All at 56K in price (which is a fair amount, but I think any warrior above about 14th level would want one)
