Immortals Handbook - ASCENSION

[CRGreathouse]

Which book are you doing next? Is it Epic Bestiary II ?

It should be the Grimoire.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi DCrane1!

...and welcome to the boards.

When will the print version be coming out of both The Immortals Handbook - EPIC BESTIARY: Volume One and the Immortals Handbook - ASCENSION.

I honestly can't give a date at this point. Sorry.

The closest I have been told is early 2007 (for the Bestiary). As soon as I know for definite I will post the details on my website. It could be January 2007, but I can't confirm that at the moment.

As for Ascension, the earliest would be June 2007. But again, I can't confirm or deny when it will appear at this time.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi dante mate!

Which book are you doing next? Is it Epic Bestiary II ?

No. (Thanks to CRGreathouse for stepping in for me)

The order is...

Grimoire - Magic

Epic Bestiary 2

Chronicle - Adventures

Immortals Index 1 (probably Celtic Mythology)

Epic Bestiary 3

Immortals Index 2 (Aztec Mythology)

Immortals Index 3 (Mesopotamian Mythology)

I think planning anything beyond that is a pipe dream. I don't know when 4th Edition will show up (or how it will affect 3.5 sales), and how long these books will take me to complete. But thats the plan.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi paradox mate!

With regards Anyfeat, I think the only fair solution would be to cancel the power as soon as they changed the feat, otherwise its just going to get out of hand. Anyfeat was meant to add versatility, not infinity.

Kudos to your PC for finding such a loophole. I'd give them some bonus EXP to compensate.

 

[paradox42]

I'd like to draw attention once again to the last paragraph I put in my first post on the subject.

Lest you think this is a problem with the psionics rules, I'll point out that a Sorcerer or Bard could easily do the same thing with the Spell Knowledge feat. It works just as well for them too- it may not be quite as good as always knowing all spells, but it does mean that you can know any spell you want to know- and use it- as long as you have a few rounds to prepare.

Any spontaneous spellcaster-type, one who can cast any known spell without preparing it first, can do this. It's not psionics causing the problem, it's the spontaneity.

That said, thank you all for the responses; that was my knee-jerk reaction to the matter as well, but players being players they started to argue the other way. And honestly, their argument does have some merit (not from a game-balance POV, but from a game-world-consistency POV). Having an effect that's already in place, not requiring concentration to maintain, just plain vanish if the caster "forgets" it has far-reaching implications. For example, what if a character loses a level, but has a multiple-day-duration effect in place somewhere, like a Dominate, and that happens to be the spell he's forced to lose with the lost level? What if the character "forgets" Permanency, but still has some now-Permanent effects in place on itself? And perhaps most important of all, why don't the effects of Instantaneous spells that leave something in place (for example, Flesh to Stone) reverse themselves?

Perhaps the ability to switch a feat with Anyfeat involves some sort of dipping into alternate realities. This would mean that the deity with the ability is able to keep itself in a sort of state of quantum flux, if you will pardon the brief dip into science jargon; anything is possible with it, but only one thing can be actualized at a time. If you switch the actualization, your new reality excludes whatever was done with the former one. However, this would still leave the problem of Instantaneous effects left in place (again, like Flesh to Stone), but perhaps more careful thought can find a way around the problem.

In any case, I'd advocate that a special note be added to Anyfeat regarding this loophole; surely my players won't be the only ones who find it. Equinox's player is a powergamer, but he's not the type who hangs out on the Character Optimization boards at wizards.com- he'd never figure out Pun-Pun or any of the other absurd combinations that have been invented to defeat him. If he could think of this, plenty of others will.

 

[Anabstercorian]

I'd recommend that anyfeat simply not function for things like Spell Knowledge, Power Knowledge, and the like; it steps on the toes of Enlightened and Divine Wizardry.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey guys!

I'll specify that if you have an ability in effect using the (any)feat, if you use another you lose the original use.

 

[paradox42]

Ah, a good point there that I was about to post about- UK pre-empted me on it. There are feats which can create "duration" effects which might allow you to get an effect and switch the Anyfeat away from it; an (admittedly simplistic) example would be Power Attack. That lasts a whole round, once you set it: but if you first-thing-on-your-turn set Power Attack, and then switch Anyfeat away from Power Attack, the effect of Power Attack is supposed to stay in place.

UK's pronouncement prevents this by saying any effect of a feat that you gained with Anyfeat, "goes away" immediately if you switch the anyfeat to "point to" something else. This would include effects like Power Attack ro Combat Expertise, as well as long-duration spells that you only knew because you used Anyfeat to gain Spell Knowledge for them.

Works for me.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Because I don't want to step on the toes of * Knowledge or the like, and because I feel that spells that can't be dismissed shouldn't be easier to remove with Anyfeat, I would instead say that as long as you're still using the feat (spell in effect, in a round with Power Attack, et. al.) you can't change the Anyfeat.

 

[Anabstercorian]

That's probably an even better resolution to the problem.