Immortals Handbook - Ascension Discussion

[paradox42]

Adding to what WarDragon and Adslahnit have said, certainly PCs will opt to take less artifacts if they like the results. Actually my players (all of whom have divine PCs now) have had trouble coming up with a list of four specific items they wanted to transform into what I've called "Soul Objects" in game terms, which is to say the four specific items that increase in power as the character does. Coming up with one or two was pretty easy for all of them, and going to three wasn't a problem for most, but several players had trouble imagining what they'd want a fourth item to do on top of the stuff granted by the other three and their feats, class powers and divine abilities.

So I invoked the "gain divine abilities equal to DR" rule for the game, especially because two players who underwent a rather... unorthodox, method of ascension, ended up with more than two Portfolios and therefore were "in the hole" as far as divine abilities were concerned (because I insisted that the extra Portfolios be paid for- they had the choice of having only two during ascension and opted to be greedy). So those two PCs gave up artifacts to pay for their extra Portfolios. But as soon as the other players saw that, they wanted to have the option for themselves, especially the two big powergamers of the party. I limited regular characters to giving up a maximum of one artifact in exchange for abilities, to try curbing abuse; even so several players have taken the option.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Okay, there seem to be some major balance problems with a few of the spell-like abilities of immortals, both from the divinity templates themselves and portfolios (especially double portfolios due to the standard + swift activation times):

1.) The Greater Dispel Magic SLA that immortals and above get is rather useless, because the maximum caster level bonus you can ever get on your dispel check for Greater Dispel Magic is +20.

2.) The Good portfolio's Holy Word SLA, the Evil portfolio's Blasphemy SLA, the Law portfolio's Dictum SLA, and the Chaos portfolio's (also the Music portfolio's) Word of Chaos SLA are all overpowered. Your caster level for all spells and spell-like abilities is equal to your HD + your divine rank, so your caster level will always be higher than your HD. Holy Word/Blasphemy/Dictum/Word of Chaos kills all enemies that don't match the corresponding alignment if their HD is equal to or less than your caster level - 10. So a in a fight between a 60 HD intermediate deity (caster level 72nd) with the Law portfolio and a 60 HD intermediate deity with the Music portfolio, it's just going to be Russian Roulette to see who penetrates the other guy's spell resistance for Dictum or Word of Chaos.

3.) Having at least 17 HD and double-Thievery or double-Time portfolios gets you Time Stop at will as a standard or swift action. Need I say more? As a 17 HD hero-deity (a "mere" ECL 32) with double-Thievery or double-Time portfolios, you'll be able to wipe the floor with anybody that doesn't have Spell Stowaway (Time Stop) or Slipstream. I know that Spell Stowaway (Time Stop) costs only an epic feat slot, but not every immortal is capable of casting Time Stop or willing to take Nescience just to qualify for Spell Stowaway (Time Stop), and it shouldn't be that every immortal is forced to take this epic feat even though it doesn't make sense for them.

4.) Don't you think that the Charity portfolio's Wish SLA and the Luck portfolio's Miracle SLA are a bit too much? Sure, immortals can toss around a daily number of Wishes without the xp cost due to their divinity templates, but Wish and Miracle beat everything but Time Stop in terms of the most powerful 9th-level portfolio SLA. And just like the Time Stop portfolio SLA, a 17 HD hero-deity (ECL 32) with double-Charity or double-Luck portfolios can cast Wish/Miracle at will as a standard or swift action, all without the xp cost.

 

[WarDragon]

3.) Having at least 17 HD and double-Thievery or double-Time portfolios gets you Time Stop at will as a standard or swift action. Need I say more? As a 17 HD hero-deity (a "mere" ECL 32) with double-Thievery or double-Time portfolios, you'll be able to wipe the floor with anybody that doesn't have Spell Stowaway (Time Stop) or Slipstream. I know that Spell Stowaway (Time Stop) costs only an epic feat slot, but not every immortal is capable of casting Time Stop or willing to take Nescience just to qualify for Spell Stowaway (Time Stop), and it shouldn't be that every immortal is forced to take this epic feat even though it doesn't make sense for them.

Not really so much of a problem, when you consider that you can't affect anything besides yourself while a Time Stop is active. You can buff, summon, or run away, and that's about it. Delay Spell might cause some problems, but that's a fairly obscure, non-core metamagic, so I'm not too worried about it.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Not really so much of a problem, when you consider that you can't affect anything besides yourself while a Time Stop is active. You can buff, summon, or run away, and that's about it. Delay Spell might cause some problems, but that's a fairly obscure, non-core metamagic, so I'm not too worried about it.

You can move a limitless distance (until you bump into Slipstream'd beings) while under an indefinitely-sustained Time Stop, so that's even better than Superluminal, which is a transcendental ability. You can set up a cluster of Delayed Blast Fireballs around your opponent. You can heal yourself to full hp*, letting you get back into the fight at tip-top shape.

Come to think of it, Wish can do this to you and all of your allies with a single casting, which makes Iatric [Effect] utterly useless. This function of Wish should be removed, or at least removed for immortals.

 

[Alzrius]

Okay, there seem to be some major balance problems with a few of the spell-like abilities of immortals, both from the divinity templates themselves and portfolios (especially double portfolios due to the standard + swift activation times):

1.) The Greater Dispel Magic SLA that immortals and above get is rather useless, because the maximum caster level bonus you can ever get on your dispel check for Greater Dispel Magic is +20.

This is a problem with greater dispel magic itself, rather than with its use in regards to divinity templates. This'd probably require a house rule that immortals can get a bonus on their dispel check equal to their HD (plus their divine bonus).

2.) The Good portfolio's Holy Word SLA, the Evil portfolio's Blasphemy SLA, the Law portfolio's Dictum SLA, and the Chaos portfolio's (also the Music portfolio's) Word of Chaos SLA are all overpowered. Your caster level for all spells and spell-like abilities is equal to your HD + your divine rank, so your caster level will always be higher than your HD. Holy Word/Blasphemy/Dictum/Word of Chaos kills all enemies that don't match the corresponding alignment if their HD is equal to or less than your caster level - 10. So a in a fight between a 60 HD intermediate deity (caster level 72nd) with the Law portfolio and a 60 HD intermediate deity with the Music portfolio, it's just going to be Russian Roulette to see who penetrates the other guy's spell resistance for Dictum or Word of Chaos.

Again, this is a problem with those spells themselves. In fact, this argument is pretty much what people don't like about save-or-die (or in this case, resist-or-die) spells at all. Bear in mind that this'd only be true for gods, since sidereals and above are immune to sub-epic spells. Again, you'd probably want to house rule this so it's based on HD, rather than caster level.

3.) Having at least 17 HD and double-Thievery or double-Time portfolios gets you Time Stop at will as a standard or swift action. Need I say more? As a 17 HD hero-deity (a "mere" ECL 32) with double-Thievery or double-Time portfolios, you'll be able to wipe the floor with anybody that doesn't have Spell Stowaway (Time Stop) or Slipstream. I know that Spell Stowaway (Time Stop) costs only an epic feat slot, but not every immortal is capable of casting Time Stop or willing to take Nescience just to qualify for Spell Stowaway (Time Stop), and it shouldn't be that every immortal is forced to take this epic feat even though it doesn't make sense for them.

WarDragon pretty well covered this. Time Stop doesn't let you affect anyone else while you're under its effect; this'll let the one using it buff/heal/flee as they want, but not instant-kill anyone else.

4.) Don't you think that the Charity portfolio's Wish SLA and the Luck portfolio's Miracle SLA are a bit too much? Sure, immortals can toss around a daily number of Wishes without the xp cost due to their divinity templates, but Wish and Miracle beat everything but Time Stop in terms of the most powerful 9th-level portfolio SLA. And just like the Time Stop portfolio SLA, a 17 HD hero-deity (ECL 32) with double-Charity or double-Luck portfolios can cast Wish/Miracle at will as a standard or swift action, all without the xp cost.

Wish and miracle are hardly as powerful as you're making them out to be. They can, at most, mimic spells of 8th or lower, which is hardly overpowered, since it can't even duplicate other spells of its own level, which means that wish could never mimic a time stop, for example.

 

[Alzrius]

You can move a limitless distance (until you bump into Slipstream'd beings) while under an indefinitely-sustained Time Stop, so that's even better than Superluminal, which is a transcendental ability.

There's no way to make an "indefinitely-sustained" time stop. It wears off after 1d4+1 apparent rounds of time (from your point of view) and then it's someone else's turn in the initiative order. Hence, someone with that as a swift and standard action could use it twice, back to back, and then everyone else gets to go (immediate actions notwithstanding). That's hardly indefinite.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Wish and miracle are hardly as powerful as you're making them out to be. They can, at most, mimic spells of 8th or lower, which is hardly overpowered, since it can't even duplicate other spells of its own level, which means that wish could never mimic a time stop, for example.

Wish or Miracle as a spell-like ability is indeed very powerful. It removes the need for any sort of healing ability (no need for Iatric [Effect] any more) with its healing function, and with its item creation function, you can make yourself a +9999 enhancement bonus item for free because the xp cost is completely removed. I sugest that those two functions be removed for immortals.

There's no way to make an "indefinitely-sustained" time stop. It wears off after 1d4+1 apparent rounds of time (from your point of view) and then it's someone else's turn in the initiative order. Hence, someone with that as a swift and standard action could use it twice, back to back, and then everyone else gets to go (immediate actions notwithstanding). That's hardly indefinite.

Don't you get to use your portfolio SLAs at will, allowing you to spam Time Stop even with only a single time Portfolio using your extra standard actions?

 

[Alzrius]

Wish or Miracle as a spell-like ability is indeed very powerful. It removes the need for any sort of healing ability (no need for Iatric [Effect] any more) with its healing function, and with its item creation function, you can make yourself a +9999 enhancement bonus item for free because the xp cost is completely removed. I sugest that those two functions be removed for immortals.

The healing function doesn't make Iatric Effect totally useless; you can use various Iatric powers (such as storm) that last multiple rounds without having to use an action each round. Iatric effect also damages undead at the same time that it heals living creatures, so it's more useful if you and your living allies are facing a group of undead, etc.

Further, while I suppose one could rules-lawyer their way into saying that no function of wish carries an XP penalty, I'd say that using wish to create a magic item carries the normal XP cost for doing so, as outlined in the spell description. Even if you use it as an SLA, making new magic items via wish should still cost you.

Don't you get to use your portfolio SLAs at will, allowing you to spam Time Stop even with only a single time Portfolio using your extra standard actions?

Again, the rules aren't totally clear on this issue, but I'd say that multiple castings of time stop don't stack, or even overlap with each other. You can't use another one until the first one ends (though different casters who use time stop at the same time would still be able to interact with each other normally, but not anyone else, as outlined in the spell description).

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Adslahnit dude!

Uh, the method I suggested doesn't work that way at all. A Belt of Strength +20 is still worth 4,000,000 gp, and a Belt of Strength +200 is still worth 400,000,000 gp. It's just that a Belt of Strength and Wisdom +10 is worth the same as a Belt of Strength +20, and a Belt of Strength and Wisdom +100 is worth the same as a Belt of Strength +200, preventing virtual discounts by stacking different abilities onto the same item. Of course, you can get an even bigger discount by spreading out the abilities across several items, but immortals can only have up to 4 artifacts.

If you want to work things like that then go ahead although it doesn't parallel with the magic item creation rules. It penalises stacking multiple effects within the same item...but perhaps thats a good thing.

See what WarDragon said. Sometimes, you want to make a character that has only one signature item, and sometimes you want to play as a character with no items at all, especially when you're playing an immortal with a monstrous and non-humanoid form. In the event that you end up playing as your favorite character from a comic/movie/TV show/anime/manga/whatever, you'll often find that the character doesn't have a signature set of four artifacts, and that the character derived very little power from material objects.

In which case just add a number of divine ability slots equal to the immortal's divine rank x missing artifacts.

Of course, while balanced, that does have a tendency to give ridiculous numbers of divine abilities so I always suggest you use the most powerful abilities possible.

e.g. If you gain an extra 12 divine ability slots use 2 cosmic abilities rather than 12 divine abilities.

It gets messy when you tamper with HD, ECL, and CR. A 100 HD greater deity should have the same ECL and CR as any other 100 HD greater deity for simplicity's sake; there shouldn't be 100 HD greater deities with lower ECLs and CRs just because they don't have a full set of four artifacts, so we have to give them divine ability slots to compensate instead.

See above.

But the question is, how many divine ability slots? Is what Alzrius said the official word on the matter?

Yes I designed the system to be flexible like that.

Like I asked Alzrius, an artifact that gives you 2 cosmic abilities would effectively be a +72 enhancement bonus item, equivalent to an item of [Ability Score] +72 or Bracers of Armor +72, correct?

Yes.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello again!

U_K, should a divine ability give a +18 bonus to a fluid stat or a +12 bonus to a fluid stat? For that matter, are the other values for bonuses to fluid stat correct? Should a cosmic ability should give a +144 bonus to a fluid stat, should a transcendental ability give a +1,000 bonus to a fluid stat, and should an omnific ability give a +7,200 bonus to a fluid stat?

Technically, you should always design an ability (divine, cosmic etc.) to give the lowest common denominator, which is typically +1. Then simply stack that ability.

Fluid stats are to give eyeball figures for people creating their own powers, but you'll note I don't actually use any in the book.

For instance Legendary Strength doubles rather than adds a set figure.