Goggles of True Strike: To unbalancing?

[domino]

The trouble with allowing the item at all, I think, is the extension to making instead an at-will quickened true strike. Or some such similar abuse.

Nip it in the bud, I say. Stomp those munchkin dreams flat.

But it's not at will quickened. I'm talking about something that takes one round to cast, then, you get it on a single attack next round. No attack, it's wasted, and you have to do it all over again.

I thought about making it doable x times per day, but the only rules I could find were for charges, and I hate the idea of items with charges. How would it work if it were say, usable three times a day? Would I just divide the price by 3/5?

 

[Cabral]

Erk. Well first, the magic pricing guidelines in the DMG aren't hard and fast rules. Add to that True Strike is a hard spell to work with. If someone wanted a wand of true strike or a ring of true strike 1/day, I'd probably allow it as is. If someone wanted a permanent true strike, I'd ask them why. If they wanted an insight bonus to all attack rolls, I'd calculate the cost as a bonus. If they wanted tre strike's negation of miss chance from concealability, I'd treat it as an item of at will true strike but without the bonus to attack. If they wanted both, I'd use the rules for combining functions into an item.

 

[RandomPrecision]

It doesn't appear that anyone has yet brought up the fact that True Strike can (normally) only be used a few times every day. If we have an item that gives true strike as many times as we want it during a day, that's still far more than a wizard or sorcerer could muster, even if it can only be used in 1/2 of the rounds in a combat. After all, normal true strike is bound by the same limitation. Additionally, as another poster pointed out, true strike wasn't intended for full warriors, archers, or characters with sneak attacks.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Ring of true strike 3/day? 18,000gp
Ring of quickened true strike 1/day? 50,000gp.

aka ring of minor spell storing and ring of spell storing respectively. Ideally you have a sorcerer 1+ cohort or friend to refill it with truestrikes when necessary for the simple version, or a 9th+ level wizard for the more complex version.

(in fact, if you have a sorcerer cohort refilling the ring of spell storing whenever you have used up the spells in it, you could probably get a dozen or more truestrikes in a day if necessary)

Cheers!

 

[S'mon]

Hong - I'm not saying it's a 'bad' item, just that it's a very powerful item and IMO better suited for Epic-level play (where PCs often wield weapons costing 2 million+ gp) than standard play, hence 400,000gp. If they want a cheaper version, make it a ring of true strike 1/day or 5/day.

 

[hong]

Hong - I'm not saying it's a 'bad' item, just that it's a very powerful item and IMO better suited for Epic-level play (where PCs often wield weapons costing 2 million+ gp) than standard play, hence 400,000gp. If they want a cheaper version, make it a ring of true strike 1/day or 5/day.

And I'm not saying it's a "good" item, just that it's not as powerful as you think it is. Honestly, I can think of precious few PCs who would be willing to give up half their actions in a combat just to get one (almost) guaranteed hit in each of the remaining rounds. It's something that could be useful in a few specific situations (fighting something with really high AC), but even in these situations it's hardly a gamebreaker. Maybe 1,800 gp is on the low side, but 400,000 gp is just ludicrous. I'd put it somewhere between 5,000 to 20,000 gp.

 

[S'mon]

If I was a player, for 20,000gp I'd always get one once I had the money to spend. For a typical melee fighter I'd use it in conjunction with 2h Power Attack - run in, 1 hit 1 kill to the BBEG, then cleave any nearby mooks. In conjunction with a mounted lancer it's even better. Also very handy to snipers & rogues, but it's in conjunction with 3.5's power attack that it becomes awesomely powerful - probably too powerful for a 1st level spell, really. As has been noted, TS was designed to be used mostly by Wizards, who aren't likely to PA anyone. Maybe 400,000 is too much for non-Epic play, probably 100,000 is where I as a player would put it on my Fighter PC's shopping list.

 

[hong]

If I was a player, for 20,000gp I'd always get one once I had the money to spend. For a typical melee fighter I'd use it in conjunction with 2h Power Attack - run in, 1 hit 1 kill to the BBEG, then cleave any nearby mooks.

That's _one_ hit, for a max +40 damage at 20th level with a fighter type. You cannot seriously be saying that EL 20 BBEGs will go down from that. If so, perhaps you need to design more durable BBEGs.

Furthermore, in the round in which you were getting true strike up, the BBEG got a free swing/spell at you and/or anyone else in the party. You seem to keep forgetting this downside.

In conjunction with a mounted lancer it's even better.

IME mounted characters are as rare as hen's teeth. Probably has to do with 1) horses not generally fitting inside dungeons; 2) mounts dying like flies once you get past about 10th level or so.

Also very handy to snipers & rogues,

Why?

but it's in conjunction with 3.5's power attack that it becomes awesomely powerful - probably too powerful for a 1st level spell, really.

Nonsense.

Now you know what 1st level spell I REALLY have problems with? Lion's charge. That one lets you do a full attack from anywhere up to 60 feet away, and when cast on a melee specialist, it's enough to decide the outcome of a fight in the first round. In general, I'd be much more worried about anything that makes getting full attacks easier without risking yourself in turn, since it's all those hits that really make a difference. D&D combat in general is all about hitting multiple times, rather than making one super-duper hit.

 

[hong]

Put it this way: I actually designed and played an archer PrC that, at the top end, essentially gets true strike at will. Furthermore, they don't even have to waste a round activating it: as a standard action, they get one shot with +20 to hit, ignore concealment miss chances etc. They also get something like ranged Power Attack with this shot, so if they want, they can convert all that +20 attack bonus into a +60 damage bonus (yes, it's +3/-1).

Now, whether or not this PrC is/was balanced is another issue (I was designing it with the 3.0 OotBI, peerless archer and deepwood sniper in mind), but the main thing is that when the chips were down, I STILL ended up going back to the usual D&D machine-gun archer schtick. I could put out more damage more consistently by shooting multiple times per round rather than making one super shot, even with all the cheese people have mentioned in this thread. Yes, I did make one critical hit on a hapless dire tyrannosaur for 225 points of damage, but spotlight time aside, relying on this to win you the big fights is a losing proposition. This tells me that true strike really isn't that big a deal, and there are other things out there that will have a bigger impact on the fights.

 

[S'mon]

OK, I'll reconsider my position.

Luckily I'm currently running a campaign with level 1 & 2 PCs & I no longer have to deal with this stuff... not for awhile, anyway...