Heroes of Shadow's Feat Preview

[gyor]

Yeah, phasing would have been fantastic but insubstantial is sort of meh.

Good for a blackguard if insubstantial works against a Blackguards self inflicted damage.

Also what kind of extra bonus do you think holy symbol and ki focus grant?

 

[Zaran]

Good for a blackguard if insubstantial works against a Blackguards self inflicted damage.

Also what kind of extra bonus do you think holy symbol and ki focus grant?

I woukd suspect that ki focus expetise works like versatile expertise granting a bonus to both implement and melee attacks with weapons you are proficient in

 

[Incenjucar]

Good for a blackguard if insubstantial works against a Blackguards self inflicted damage.

Also what kind of extra bonus do you think holy symbol and ki focus grant?

Has there ever been a self-inflicted damage ability that you could actually mitigate in a way that wasn't part of the power?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Situational feats:

I ran my brother´s character through the solo adventure last year. He was a kalashtar and used his single feat on

Spoiler

resist psychic. Guess how much he grinned when he realized he can ignore all those minions in the boss fight.

 

[gyor]

Has there ever been a self-inflicted damage ability that you could actually mitigate in a way that wasn't part of the power?

The blackguard already mitigates it with temp hit points. As well if it don't specifically say you can't. Unfortunetly no one has scanned the character sheets on the bg so we don't know how it is worded. We will have to wait for its release.

 

[the-golem]

I think insubstantial until end of next turn would be too powerful, possibly more powerful than feats like Toughness and Disciple of Stone. Monsters do most of their damage during the alpha strike, and if you get your action point out before that, this could trivialize the monster alpha.

But insubstantial until end of current turn is too weak. I think they missed the mark on this one. Perhaps they could add free 3 squares of movement with an action point, but then it starts to read like a PP action point feature.

Overall, I think there is one serious design issue with the previewed conditional feats. If you pick one of those feats, your feat is at the mercy of the DM. If the DM never uses an insubstantial creature, you are basically playing with one less feat than everyone else who was smarter and picked DM independent feats.

In one of our games, the paladin picked Pelor's Radiance as a feat. The last 6 levels we have not fought a single undead. He finally decided to retrain it to something more useful like Superior Will, we get dazed and stunned all the time. Per Murphy's law, we'll probably fight some undead this level, and he won't get dazed or stunned for a while.

As it's written, I don't even see how this feat can be that useful. If you use an AP to attack, then the insubstantial is largely irrelevant. If you use the AP to move, then the insubstantial is only marginally useful if you provoke OA.

Question though, if I'm insubstantial, and so is my enemy, does that let me do full damage?

 

[Klaus]

As it's written, I don't even see how this feat can be that useful. If you use an AP to attack, then the insubstantial is largely irrelevant. If you use the AP to move, then the insubstantial is only marginally useful if you provoke OA.

Question though, if I'm insubstantial, and so is my enemy, does that let me do full damage?

Insubstantial halves damage from any damage source. Auras, OAs, damaging terrain, falls, etc. You could spend an AP at the start of your turn and then spemnd four actions with the benefit of insubstantial. A Thief, who relies mostly on move actions to do his stuff, would take much mileage out of this. Ditto on all skirmisher-type classes, like Assassins and Pursuing Avengers.

 

[Incenjucar]

The blackguard already mitigates it with temp hit points. As well if it don't specifically say you can't. Unfortunetly no one has scanned the character sheets on the bg so we don't know how it is worded. We will have to wait for its release.

Losing temp HP is still taking damage, but you'll always take the full damage even if you're using something like Insubstantial to reduce damage. You pretty much never get to resist or otherwise nullify damage that you do to yourself for these abilities, even when that damage is typed.

 

[gyor]

Insubstantial halves damage from any damage source. Auras, OAs, damaging terrain, falls, etc. You could spend an AP at the start of your turn and then spemnd four actions with the benefit of insubstantial. A Thief, who relies mostly on move actions to do his stuff, would take much mileage out of this. Ditto on all skirmisher-type classes, like Assassins and Pursuing Avengers.

I would think retribution avengers would like it more as getting hit by the right enemies aka not your target boost your damage?