Channel Divinity Melora

[Moon_Goddess]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Melora)


Seriously? Another article this month of just items?

What an increadable disappointment, I love getting articles 5 days a week but if this is what it means I'm gonna stop caring about having ddi

Would it hurt to have, how I don't know more than 3 sentances about the god?

 

[Kzach]

Yeah, I have to agree. Items are nice and all but I expect fluff more than anything else from these articles.

Having said that, I generally don't have much use for the fluff either, unless it's like the warlock article and it inspires me in some way. Still, a nice balance of each would've been better than all of one and none of the other.

The biggest problem with these articles is that unless they present an item that is as good as or superior to the items that enhance solid builds, then few people will even want them, let alone read through them all. And if they're not providing an option that is as good as or better than the primary build choice items, then all they become after the fact is clutter to wade through.

By primary build choice items, I mean items like your Staff of Ruin, Rod of Corruption, Jagged Weapon, etc. These are items that anyone with a solid grasp of system mechanics will latch onto as superior for their character's build and no matter how interesting other choices may be, limited item choices will always dictate the most powerful choice above others.

So as I said, these then just become clutter.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The biggest problem with these articles is that unless they present an item that is as good as or superior to the items that enhance solid builds, then few people will even want them, let alone read through them all. And if they're not providing an option that is as good as or better than the primary build choice items, then all they become after the fact is clutter to wade through.

By primary build choice items, I mean items like your Staff of Ruin, Rod of Corruption, Jagged Weapon, etc. These are items that anyone with a solid grasp of system mechanics will latch onto as superior for their character's build and no matter how interesting other choices may be, limited item choices will always dictate the most powerful choice above others.

So as I said, these then just become clutter.

these only become clutter to people who choose to let themselves be limited...there are many people who would rather vary there items, and not play simalar builds/item selection game after game...If Jon has a staff of ruin this game as the sorcerer I would rather my sorcerer in the next find a diffrent item...

as such there is a popular playstyle that wants and even needs a constant influx of these items..

 

[Nightson]

After the previous Channel Divinity articles, that one was just disappointing. I know Dragon switched to shorter articles, but man...

 

[Kzach]

as such there is a popular playstyle that wants and even needs a constant influx of these items..

You're welcome to gimp your character all you want, but that doesn't make these articles any better or worthwhile.

Wouldn't you prefer fewer items that are better conceived? Imagine this same article with half the items, and the rest fluff explaining their use in Meloran churches.

And with that extra thought, the items presented could be on par with the primary build choice items instead of below them and thus more clutter for the Character Builder.

Personally I would prefer higher quality and less content than more content and less quality. And IMNSHO, if the item doesn't offer an equally powerful option to the primary build choice items, then it offers nothing of value and therefore isn't of high enough quality to be an inclusion into an article.

 

[Klaus]

My problem with this article is that it's a Bazaar of the Bizarre masquerading as a Channel Divinity.

 

[Jhaelen]

And IMNSHO, if the item doesn't offer an equally powerful option to the primary build choice items, then it offers nothing of value and therefore isn't of high enough quality to be an inclusion into an article.

I cannot put into words, how much I disagree with that notion. I know that YMMV, and I'm probably calling 'wrongbadfun', but I shudder to think what your games might be like.

So, basically, you only ever want to see new material if it represents power-creep*? Whew.

*: yeah, I know you wrote 'equally powerful'. Still the net effect would be the same:

Trying to only create new things that are 'equally' powerful as the most powerful things will have one of two (or maybe three) results:

1. The new item turns out to be less powerful than intended* and is therefore a 'failure' nobody will be interested in.

2. The new item turns out to be more powerful than intended* and therefore invalidates everything that came before. This is a 'success', since it means the new item will actually be used.

3. They actually manage the impossible and the new item turns out to be exactly as powerful as the previous 'best' option, resulting in noone being interested because they might just as well stay with the previous 'best' option.

 

[Zaukrie]

Yeah, if you re-name this bazaar of the bizzarre and add 2 paragraphs of fluff, my reaction to this article would be more positive.

That said, I like more items. I just want them to come with stories.

 

[Mentat55]

After the quality of the warlock pacts article, and the compact but great crunch of the halfling article, this one was disappointing. I was hoping to get a bit more background about Melora, like that excellent Bane article we had awhile back. Was that a Channel Divinity article as well, or did it have a different name, like Deities and Demigods or something?

 

[Shroomy]

I'm going to be a contrarian here and say that I really liked this article, as well as the earlier "Know Your Role: Defenders" article, because I think that allowing a player to directly link their PC's magic items to a particular theme is overall a good idea (needless to say, I also disagree with Kzach). The real problem, from my perspective, is that it looks like WotC is going to use the same Channel Divinity naming conventions for both the short articles and the longer ones (like we got for Bahamut and the Raven Queen). They need to find a better name for one of them.