Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="da chicken" data-source="post: 500077" data-attributes="member: 5634"><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" />Pick up a D&D module.  Any of them.  It shouldn’t matter.  Read a couple encounters.  Many of them say “the creatures attack on sight and fight until dead.”  Now look in the DMG.  Look at the NPC wealth-by-level guideline chart.  Now look at the PC wealth-by-level guideline chart.  Now look in the Monster Manual.  Look at Dragaons, who have an unlimited use breath weapon.  Look at Demons and Devils, who have numerous high-level spell-like abilities usable at will.Do you know why a Balor, who has spells like blasphemy and greater dispelling at will isn’t broken?  Because he’s never on the scene long enough for there to be an appreciable difference between “at will” and “X times per day.”  The only “at will” spell PCs can get is detect evil.The rules are different for NPCs.  The game not only acknowledges this, it assumes it.  Ignore your suspension of disbelief you use in-game and look at what happens in a D&D game rationally.  Look at it like a game designer.  That is how you determine if something is balanced.Balanced in our context does not mean equal. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" />  I guess that means true strike needs to be an epic spell, ‘cause that works out to 800,000 gp on a magic item.  And slay living can be first, since arrows of slaying only cost ~2,000 gp. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" />Your method is flawed.  You’re reverse engineering and comparing the result to basic guidelines, not recipies.  The weapon enhancment speed is priced at +4 because of ad-hoc balance requirements.  When you’re balancing a game system, you can’t assume that your general pricing sceme is going to work across the board.  That’s why the guidelines for magic item pricing say “look to what other items which have similar effects cost,” not “price things as cheap as the guidelines allow and to heck with sanity.”  You must look at the effects of your design and not just crunch the numbers.I’ll just quote myself, as it makes my point pretty well:“Look, you can't cost a permanent haste effect as if you were just making any 3rd level spell permanent. You don't get to ignore game design just because you find a cheaper way to price something. If the spell provides AC bonuses, you have to price them as AC bonuses. Proper game design involves not allowing players to get something for nothing, and you're ignoring the fact that haste has a very limited duration. If we look at Persistant Spell (which doesn't apply to haste, but it serves as a good example), you must spend +4 levels for an (effectively) permanent spell. Meaning a permanent haste spell would be about 7th level.”</blockquote>

Verification