rycanada said:
I want to hear all about AE7, honestly. I've got AE and I thought there would be issues (quickling faen unfettered builds, sorcerous blast-heavy magisters) but if they don't materialize that would be fantastic.
Sorcerous blast-heavy magisters and unfettered builds? What issues do you mean (specifically)?
Concerning the unfettered quicklings:
Well, 7th-level gives them +3 AC bonus by class, which about makes up for the restriction to light armour (granted, they're a bit better, due to the higher max. Dex-bonus). While they're ahead of most ACs due to the parry, they still suffer from the d8 as HD and on 7th, their Sneak Attack is only +1d6. They're still very good light fighters, but I doubt they'll outshine anyone.
Concerning the magister:
Granted,
sorcerous blast is very good, but even on 7th, a magister with Int 18+ will not churn out more than 6 of them per day (by weaving down the 4th-level slots). A dedicated evoker wizard on 6th can already toss 4
fireballs a day.
The big benefit of the sorcerous blast (variable damage type) isn't that big, because on 7th, you see much less resistances or immunities - this aspect only comes into play later.
And the power of spell-templates and the Modify Spell-feat? Well, ladening is a still a huge cost, especially if you only have so many slots, and the various other templates need a costly material component worth 25+ gp. On higher level, that's basically a non-cost, but when facing encounters around CR 5-6, your average treasure is about 2,000 gp, meaning it's 500 gp per party member - blowing up components worth about 5% of your personal treasure isn't that cool.
If you now consider that all classes in AE are a bit more durable (higher HD, esp. the frailer ones), it becomes much less scary - or is about on par with the power of a D&D wizard chucking
fireballs, but without the combat-ending power of
colour spray,
black tentacles or the world-altering powers of
scrying or
lesser planar binding (since this stuff is higher level stuff in AE).
On another note: Many of my players (i.e. all
) dislike the fact that after 6th (or 7th), you won't get any hp without the Toughness feat. I'm musing about this rule:
For every feat gained after 6th level, your max. hp increases by +1 (if a non-full BAB-class).
Even with a load of feats, this increase isn't that big, thus still preserve the feeling of being vulnerable, but show some accumulating "sturdiness".
