Immortals Handbook - Ascension Discussion

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Heh, guess I had a brain fart or something.
(Although, multiples of 5 are just as bad, since gets anyone who rounds out HD or anyone who just meets the prerequisitie minimum HD for a divinity template)

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Adslahnit matey!

Okay, so I managed to get an Immortals Handbook page set up on a friend's wiki: www.big-metto.net/RP_Wiki/index.php?title=Adslahnit's_Immortals_Handbook_Monstrosities

From there I'll probably get to statting some stuff in my free time, although it might be a futile effort with 4th Edition just a couple of months away. By the way, I hope you don't mind my comments on the game balance of each of the power tiers.

Cool page...and no, I don't mind the comments. Fairly accurate I suspect. While I think up to ECL 200 is balanced, I think its all too easy to min/max something at a much lower ECL that will give you problems.

Also I think there will be a tendency to swop artifacts for Cosmic Powers (my fault I suppose since I didn't get the magic items from Grimoire out there) at demigod and better tiers and I sort of wasn't expecting Demigods to have five cosmic abilities.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Yea, of the players who made characters so far for my epic game, 2 out of 3 of them had all their artifacts be cosmic powers. To be honest, while they are strong powers chosen, (Cosmic Toughness was one, everyone took at least Legendary (prime attribute) I think the reason they were chosen is so that they wouldn't have to wade through 200+ divine abilities and end up picking ones that only really have RP applications. One of them did take Theopoea, but only because, as a god of Fire, Fire, and also Fire (did I mention Fire?) Lava Golems make great guardians. (Greater Stone Golems + Fire Healing & a Fiery slam attack)
Overall, I am surprised that no one has (yet; one player still needs to make a character) picked a Cosmic Effect. (Though one has Uncanny Divine Mastery) I guess it is because, as Lesser Deities, they don't have enough HD to do anything meaningful with the Strike/Storm powers.
Though their choice of powers makes it a bit tricky to plan encounters (Curse you Abrogate! ) they don't seem to have picked anything that makes them unstoppable. (For now...)

 

[jedrious]

Yea, of the players who made characters so far for my epic game, 2 out of 3 of them had all their artifacts be cosmic powers. To be honest, while they are strong powers chosen, (Cosmic Toughness was one, everyone took at least Legendary (prime attribute) I think the reason they were chosen is so that they wouldn't have to wade through 200+ divine abilities and end up picking ones that only really have RP applications. One of them did take Theopoea, but only because, as a god of Fire, Fire, and also Fire (did I mention Fire?) Lava Golems make great guardians. (Greater Stone Golems + Fire Healing & a Fiery slam attack)
Overall, I am surprised that no one has (yet; one player still needs to make a character) picked a Cosmic Effect. (Though one has Uncanny Divine Mastery) I guess it is because, as Lesser Deities, they don't have enough HD to do anything meaningful with the Strike/Storm powers.
Though their choice of powers makes it a bit tricky to plan encounters (Curse you Abrogate! ) they don't seem to have picked anything that makes them unstoppable. (For now...)

Points at Gravitic Effect

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Points at Gravitic Effect

Yea, but when you can only afford to take one rank of an effect, the ~5% life you drain with a gravitic attack won't compare to adding a full-power Telluric Con-draining effect to your fists and attacking several times. (unless you happen to be fighting a foe with Cosmic/Transient toughness, to whom constitution means little more then fort saves...)

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Ltheb mate!

Yea, of the players who made characters so far for my epic game, 2 out of 3 of them had all their artifacts be cosmic powers. To be honest, while they are strong powers chosen, (Cosmic Toughness was one, everyone took at least Legendary (prime attribute) I think the reason they were chosen is so that they wouldn't have to wade through 200+ divine abilities and end up picking ones that only really have RP applications.

When I get around to the 4E version I'll really try and tighten things up. I think its far too easy to get lost in my Divine Abilities Table. So hopefully tying things closer to portfolios will make choices easier. Also notable that spells fold into encounter/daily powers in 4E so I can technically add my spells into the mix, which should liven things up a bit.

One of them did take Theopoea, but only because, as a god of Fire, Fire, and also Fire (did I mention Fire?) Lava Golems make great guardians. (Greater Stone Golems + Fire Healing & a Fiery slam attack)

Cool...or should that be hot!

Overall, I am surprised that no one has (yet; one player still needs to make a character) picked a Cosmic Effect. (Though one has Uncanny Divine Mastery) I guess it is because, as Lesser Deities, they don't have enough HD to do anything meaningful with the Strike/Storm powers.

Though their choice of powers makes it a bit tricky to plan encounters (Curse you Abrogate! ) they don't seem to have picked anything that makes them unstoppable. (For now...)

Hope the campaign is holds together despite the lofty levels.

Of course 4E design parameters - having same number of monsters as PCs, might work well here...and at some point you have to use an immortal NPC with Abrogate against them.

 

[dante58701]

I find we make heavy use of all the various powers depending on the monsters we build.

Some players go for cosmic, some stack up a lot of divine.

A couple favorites have proven to be Theopea and Two-Dimensional. Our rogues tend to hide in paintings and animate statuary. Then using clairaudience/clairvoyance they wreak havok throughout the dungeon.

Other favorites vary depending on the setting, but they all get used with a fair amount of frequency.

Our only complaint is that there are never enough divine slots to purchase abilities. =^.^=

 

[jedrious]

Yea, but when you can only afford to take one rank of an effect, the ~5% life you drain with a gravitic attack won't compare to adding a full-power Telluric Con-draining effect to your fists and attacking several times. (unless you happen to be fighting a foe with Cosmic/Transient toughness, to whom constitution means little more then fort saves...)

a full power telluric con whithering attack amounts to 1/40th your hd in con damage per hit with a strike effect first round, 1/20th your hd second round and so forth meaning unless you happen to have morw than 40 hd you get nothing in the first round and 1 con point could even equate to 0 damage, note that gravitic effect also cares nothing about your HD and purely their HP, hell a 3 weapon master with strike can do 12% of an enemies hp regardless of status, and even then if you have 13 divine abilities available (no artifact hero deity) and a cha of 55 you take inner eye, gravitic hand and quantum effect and telluric effect if you feel like overkill, 3 rounds to drop anything (2 if you took telluric)

 

[dante58701]

Of course if an actual DM is involved, anything with abilities far exceeding an immortal will surely kill said immortal in one round (or less with transtemporal).

This is just more munchkinism. Any rule, no matter how well balanced can easily be abused without proper Dungeon Mastering. This is why we have DM's...to kill off smartalecky PCs that have extremly deadly and unrealistic combinations of abilities.

Example: I am a 1st level Human that has been granted the Hero-Deity template. I trade in all my artifacts for more divine abilities and pump up my aura. Then I take the Double Death portfolios and pump up my save DC via various other feats and divine abilities.

The DEATH effect portion of my aura now drops even gods like flies and I have no more friends because I killed everyone who approached me.

Rectification: A Barbarian Fertility god with Double Fertility portfolios comes along and rends my head off after he makes his pumped up saving throw against my Death effect.

In short...anything ridiculous can be overcome.


SIDENOTE FOR KRUSTY - ABADOX...as in ABADOX for NES. What exactly would that nasty flemball of a planetoid creature be? Anyone interested in writing it up? A lot of people here are interested in seeing it and it's inner creatures written up. Purely for horror and nostalgia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abadox

 

[Frobojoe]

Example: I am a 1st level Human that has been granted the Hero-Deity template. I trade in all my artifacts for more divine abilities and pump up my aura. Then I take the Double Death portfolios and pump up my save DC via various other feats and divine abilities.

The DEATH effect portion of my aura now drops even gods like flies and I have no more friends because I killed everyone who approached me.

Which would be an impressive trick if it were, you know, possible.