Book of NineSwords

[Nifft]

C) I feel "qualified" to comment on whatever I feel like commenting on.

I was asking, not judging. Some folks have put a lot of time & energy into analyzing stuff like ToB, Incarnum and Psionics vs. Core, and some folks have play-tested a lot of these optional rules.

D) It's going fine, how about you?

Most excellent, thanks.

Cheers, -- N

 

[AllisterH]

100% agreed. As a 1st level spell this would be too powerful. I'm just trying to show that contrary to statements others have made, a level X maneuver can be more powerful than a level X spell. This is, IMO, an example of such a case.
.

Um, do people not realize that Grease does the exact same thing? At 1st level, the spell basically nullifies the typical opening charge (and frankly, its one of the best spells at around those level). By 5th level, the spell pretty much will last last long enough for most combats (5 rounds) and will thus affect more than 1 potential charger. By 9th level, the wizard can quicken the spell using a 5th level slot and by 13th level and above, even a wizard should have enough slots to be able to always have it quickened and prepared.

Seriously, do people not realize the awesomeness of the Grease Spell? Grease - the bane of chargers EVERYWHERE.... and it does more than Countercharge.

 

[brehobit]

Heh, absolutely true. I was just working off the example I was given previously, I didn't bother to check whether the example was actually legal

Firstly, I'm a bit confused as to why you can't quicken a summon spell. It takes "1 round" to cast a summon spell. Under casting time in the SRD you get "A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action" and under the quicken feat you get "A spell whose casting time is more than 1 full round action cannot be quickened". I'm not seeing a problem.
[/QUOTE]
So let's do it from scratch. Let's go with the CR 30 elder titan. He's 30'x30'x30'. For fun let's say he's 60' away and the party is 17th level (the soonest you could get war master's charge).

Mage casts summon monster VIII (empowered) and gets (the average) of 6 Hound Archon. Then comes the quickened empowered summon monster III used to get the average of 6 hawks.

Druid has augment summoning (most druids do at this level IME) and casts SNA IX (empowered) and gets 6 adult arrow hawks and uses a rod of quickening (just cause he may not have the feat) and gets 6 dire weasels. One the warblade's turn all animals, himself, the druid's animal companion and two party members charge (say not the wizard). That's 28 chargers, giving +56 to the attack roll. The warblade is, of course, in the stance that gives each charger +17 damage. So each attack hits on all but a 1 and the average damage is:
hawks: +25 +17 +d4 -2 -20 (DR) = 22.5
weasels: +25 +17 +d6 +6 -20 = 31.5
arrowhawks =32.5
hound A = 32.

Say a hound and an arrowhawk miss (only on a nat 1). The summoned baddies just did 646.5 points of damage. The animal companion will likely hit for around 40 points of damage, the warblade for well over 100 (full power attack with 2-handed weapon is +34, +17 for stance +50 for WMC gives about 100 damage) , and the other 2 party members for (say) 50 each.

Titan just took about 850 points of damage and is auto-stunned. The next 200 are pretty easy when the titan can't act. Toss in a few more chargers (say the mage charges as does his familiar as do a follower or two) and he may well die on that charge. Further, if you can get more summons (having the unnamed 4th party member use a ring or wand to summon comes to mind) he will die on that charge.

Mark

 

[Anguirus]

As long as the reader doesn't just breeze through the section with some assumed notion of reasonable limitations, it's plain to see that a warblade can recover maneuvers at no cost while attacking.

No cost? I DM a game with a warblade (actually, two, but one just has the one level in order to get into JPM) and he couldn't get his maneuvers back because he used a counter the last round to avoid being hit. So he decided to just hope his HP and AC kept him in the fight the next round. It didn't work; the giant he was fighting chopped him into spare body parts.

A swift action is not "no cost" anymore. Even to say that it's not a big opportunity cost for warblades betrays a fundamental unfamiliarity with the system. And I'm one of the guys who lets him full-attack and get maneuvers.

Frankly, that warblade does compare favorably with our gish, our blaster, and our dervish in terms of effectiveness. And I consider that a good thing. Of course he's stronger than a single-class fighter (especially a poorly built one). That is just so far from being a problem IMO.

 

[Nifft]

Firstly, I'm a bit confused as to why you can't quicken a summon spell. It takes "1 round" to cast a summon spell. Under casting time in the SRD you get "A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action" and under the quicken feat you get "A spell whose casting time is more than 1 full round action cannot be quickened". I'm not seeing a problem.

Looks good to me. (I do seem to recall people talking about being unable to Quicken their summon spells, though... I wonder if this was changed from 3.0e?)

Mage casts summon monster VIII (empowered) and gets (the average) of 6 Hound Archon. Then comes the quickened empowered summon monster III used to get the average of 6 hawks.

The thing about this is that the (quickened) hawks will appear this round, but the hound archons won't appear until next round. This is a multi-round trick as soon as you rely on non-Quickened summoning spells.

Getting the titan to stand still, 60 ft. away, for the time it takes you to cast two Empowered summoning spells may be non-trivial.

Cheers, -- N

 

[brehobit]

Getting the titan to stand still, 60 ft. away, for the time it takes you to cast two Empowered summoning spells may be non-trivial.

Cheers, -- N

I thought of that.... I really like the non-trivial line

Yeah, but it is possible. The party has to eat a single round of attacks from the titan. Maybe hard, but if they can it's game over.

Mark

 

[Drowbane]

Although not fresh, I spotted these and wanted to comment in case these guys were still around.

Yes, scorching ray is "broken" in a demonstrable sense, as it breaks the lid off the caster-level caps that are built into spells. It is a 2nd-level spell that caps its caster level at 11th-level with 12 total dice of damage, whereas it is not until 5th-level that msot spells start to exceed a capt of 10th-level with 10 dice of damage (and some not even then). There's a cascading effect of brokeness that makes an empowered scorching ray pretty insane.

12d6 damage is a tremendous value for a 2nd-level slot, and 12d6 x 1.5 is certainly a whopper for a 4th-level spell slot. It should probably have stopped at two rays.

yeah, sure. But its hardly going to break the game. Its a damn good spell. People have been saying the same thing about MM, Entangle, Web, etc for years.

If Scorching Ray breaks your D&D... then I feel for ya.

 

[AllisterH]

I thought of that.... I really like the non-trivial line

Yeah, but it is possible. The party has to eat a single round of attacks from the titan. Maybe hard, but if they can it's game over.

Mark

Unfortunately for one small problem. Said Titan has so many options that he doesn't even need to take out the party. Just take out the hawks, I mean, its not like a CR 30 titan won't simply obliterate the hawks. Hell, a freaking Windwall shuts them down. The titan can fly at will so now the hound archons have to get off the ground along with the weasels. A protection from Evil hedges the outsiders out and why isn't that Titan have *ANY* up?

Really, I stand by my point, if you can get Warmaster's charge to actually do this amount of damage, then yes, it should.

Look at the tactics required here and tell me honestly if you think this is abusive in any shape or form? If the damage potential of Warmaster's charge required only the crusader, I would agree with you brehobit but in the annals of "mucho damage potential of D&D", this sucks HARD.

Yeah, I'm really going to worry about this 9th level manoeuver.

 

[Mort]

Firstly, I'm a bit confused as to why you can't quicken a summon spell. It takes "1 round" to cast a summon spell. Under casting time in the SRD you get "A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action" and under the quicken feat you get "A spell whose casting time is more than 1 full round action cannot be quickened". I'm not seeing a problem.

You cannot quicken a summon spell - it's a full round action in the round you cast it and it extends into the next round - in other words longer than a full round action. The wording is confusing but that's the correct interpretation. see this thread for a bit of clarification (best I could find quickly). That means your idea takes even longer.

So let's do it from scratch. Let's go with the CR 30 elder titan. He's 30'x30'x30'. For fun let's say he's 60' away and the party is 17th level (the soonest you could get war master's charge).

Mage casts summon monster VIII (empowered) and gets (the average) of 6 Hound Archon. Then comes the quickened empowered summon monster III used to get the average of 6 hawks.

Druid has augment summoning (most druids do at this level IME) and casts SNA IX (empowered) and gets 6 adult arrow hawks and uses a rod of quickening (just cause he may not have the feat) and gets 6 dire weasels. One the warblade's turn all animals, himself, the druid's animal companion and two party members charge (say not the wizard). That's 28 chargers, giving +56 to the attack roll. The warblade is, of course, in the stance that gives each charger +17 damage. So each attack hits on all but a 1 and the average damage is:
hawks: +25 +17 +d4 -2 -20 (DR) = 22.5
weasels: +25 +17 +d6 +6 -20 = 31.5
arrowhawks =32.5
hound A = 32.

Say a hound and an arrowhawk miss (only on a nat 1). The summoned baddies just did 646.5 points of damage. The animal companion will likely hit for around 40 points of damage, the warblade for well over 100 (full power attack with 2-handed weapon is +34, +17 for stance +50 for WMC gives about 100 damage) , and the other 2 party members for (say) 50 each.

Titan just took about 850 points of damage and is auto-stunned. The next 200 are pretty easy when the titan can't act. Toss in a few more chargers (say the mage charges as does his familiar as do a follower or two) and he may well die on that charge. Further, if you can get more summons (having the unnamed 4th party member use a ring or wand to summon comes to mind) he will die on that charge.

Mark

So Warmaster's charge is overpowered if combined with a 9th level spell, a 7th level spell (though I still maintain no quicken), minimum 2 rounds of actions, a group of perfectly coordinated summoned creatures, all of which have a straight line to the target (no enemies in between, no obstacles, no terrain problems), and a creature not able to get out of the way or otherwise react when he sees all this massing. You know what, considering the wealth of high level options, I'm ok with that.

 

[Arkhandus]

......Instead of the wizard casting Time Stop, then unleashing a barrage of Delayed Blast Fireballs, rather than wasting other peoples' turns and actions as well? Possibly using the Energy Substitution (Acid) metamagic feat as well, to get around the all-too-common immunity/resistance to fire that is found on most high-level opponents (3.5 took away the option to substitute Sonic energy, didn't it? I only have the 3.0 source on-hand to reference at the moment).

2 Empowered, Maximized Delayed Blast Fireballs (with greater metamagic rod of maximize spell) = 204 + (34d6*0.5) damage; average of 256 damage
+ 1 Heightened, Maximized Delayed Blast Fireball (heightened 1 level to 8th-equivalent, and using the greater metamagic rod of maximize spell; not Empowered because a 17th-level wizard is unlikely to have enough 9th-level slots) = 102 damage
+ 3 Heightened, Quickened Delayed Blast Fireballs (heightened 1 level to 8th-equivalent, and using a greater metamagic rod of quicken spell) = average of 153 damage

= a total of 511 damage, by the wizard alone, on the first round

Unfortunately, I don't have the 3.5 books that would probably supply additional feats/spells/whatnot to further augment the wizard's damage output with a typical 3-round Time Stop.

Then there's whatever the druid would be doing on his turn, and whatever the warblade would be doing on his turn, and so on and so forth.

Near as I can tell, the druid's best bet with core material, aside from summoning a couple of nasties with good spell-like abilities, would probably be to cast a Maximized, Empowered, Heightened (7th-equivalent) Fire Seeds alongside a Maximized, Quickened Fire Seeds, using a greater metamagic rod of maximize spell for the first one and a greater metamagic rod of quicken spell for the second one (I think the rod's restrictions are based on the spell's total level after other metamagic, not simply their base spell level, right?).

Then just hold out the two handfuls of magically-augmented acorns ("acorn grenades") for the party's rogue or warblade or someone else to grab and throw at the opponent as touch attacks (looks like they could just empower one acorn each time, so you'd have 2 acorn grenades that each deal 17d6++ damage in a burst on impact). Actually could probably hand them to an adjacent ally as a move-equivalent action on that turn though, allowing that ally to make a full attack (for a rogue, that'd be 3 attacks, +1 more maybe with Rapid Shot).

So, 102 + (17d6*0.5) damage from the first acorn grenade, and 102 damage from the second acorn grenade. Average of 230 damage from the poor druid's efforts, plus whatever damage his animal companion will deal in melee with a charge, plus whatever damage the warblade deals, plus whatever the rogue might deal with their 1 or 2 other attacks for the round if any.

So.....841 damage from the mage and druid alone, before counting the warblade's turn and whatever he does. Might be better off using Strike of Perfect Clarity or something else, instead of Warmaster's Charge, since only the druid's animal companion and maybe 1 other would be moving into melee alongside him in the first round.