Immortals Handbook - ASCENSION

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Alzrius mate!

No problem. I can focus on chapter four for now if that's what works best.

Okay.

I do want to mention though that the quicker you can get the (relatively final) draft of the Appendix to me, the better that'll be.

I know, I know.

Stat blocks are the most difficult thing to edit, so the more time I have to work on that before the final release, the quicker everything'll go.

Which is why I am tackling the appendices stats pages before the other parts of the appendix.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Hey UK!

Just wondering if you have any comments about Escapologist:

A question about Escapologist...

First, why is it a divine ability? A ring of freedom of movement costs 40,000 gp. Slotless it would be 80K. As a feat the ability would be appropriate about when a level's difference in wealth is 160K. Making it cost six feat slots seems like a lot. Does changing something to an extraordinary ability boost its value that much?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey UK!

Hiya mate!

Apologies for the slow reply, I just have a hundred and one things on my mind at the moment.

Just wondering if you have any comments about Escapologist:

Well, firstly I think that its inevitable when dealing with such a large body of powers that some are going to be better balanced than others.

I think part of the complaint here seems to be that Freedom of Movement is an absolute.

But I can't solve all those (absolute) problems without 'upsetting the applecart' as it were.

My solution is going to be along the lines of making Escapologist more akin to the Eternal Freedom epic spell, in that it will make you immune to effects which inhibit your movement in anyway.

What do you think?

 

[Cheiromancer]

That's OK. I posed you a tough question, and it is hard to answer *any* question if you are distracted.

Invoking the ELH spell system will probably make things worse; better to leave it as it is.

My thought was more about using the relationship between wealth and feats to price the value of a feat based on what new items you could purchase when you go up a level. But since wealth increases at a faster than linear rate, that means the power of a feat will also increase at a faster than linear rate, too. In fact, they are quadratic if you use the cubic formula, or cubic if you use the ELH formula (which is approximately quartic).

This means that a feat you take at level 60 should be 4 or 8 times as powerful/expensive as a feat you take at 30th level. Which makes me wonder if Divine Abilities should simply be high level feats; they are 6 times as powerful as a low level feat because they are high level, not because they take 6 feat slots.

Do you have any insights as to how fast feats increase in power? One feat that can only be gained at level 60 is worth how many 30th level feats?

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

That's OK. I posed you a tough question, and it is hard to answer *any* question if you are distracted.

Invoking the ELH spell system will probably make things worse; better to leave it as it is.

My thought was more about using the relationship between wealth and feats to price the value of a feat based on what new items you could purchase when you go up a level. But since wealth increases at a faster than linear rate, that means the power of a feat will also increase at a faster than linear rate, too. In fact, they are quadratic if you use the cubic formula, or cubic if you use the ELH formula (which is approximately quartic).

This means that a feat you take at level 60 should be 4 or 8 times as powerful/expensive as a feat you take at 30th level. Which makes me wonder if Divine Abilities should simply be high level feats; they are 6 times as powerful as a low level feat because they are high level, not because they take 6 feat slots.

Do you have any insights as to how fast feats increase in power? One feat that can only be gained at level 60 is worth how many 30th level feats?

Well, I think for the most part, this is covered in the system already. Feats have requirements, and generally the more strict the requirement, the more powerful the feat. So a feat requireing 63 ranks in Tumble better be darn good. (Use tumble check instead of AC?)

 

[Cheiromancer]

Let me turn the question around: how much should it cost for a magic item to duplicate a feat? The cost basically determines at what level someone can acquire the magic item.

This is easy an easy question to answer for Escapologist: you can duplicate the feat by acquiring a ring of freedom of movement, which costs 40,000 gp (Hand-waving away the issue of extraordinary abilities.) The question is- what other divine abilities can be replicated so cheaply? Very few, probably; this makes me think that Escapologist is probably too weak, or the ring is too cheap.

The general question is: given a magic item, how do you design a feat that replicates it? The question here is how to determine its prerequisites, and you basically have to ask the question "At what level can someone acquire the feat"? Should it be at the same level they could afford the item? Later? Sooner?

We know how the improvement of magic items correlates with an increase in price. And we know what the wealth by level guidelines are. Can we create or expect a similar correlation with feats? The fact that a level's worth of wealth is equal to two feats suggests that a correlation should be able to be worked out.

It's this issue which is holding my interest at the moment. I know that feats with tougher prerequisites are better than ones with weak prerequisites. Just like I know that a 200,000 gp sword is better than a 2000 gp sword. The question is: how much better?

 

[paradox42]

When thinking on this topic, you should keep the issue of metamagic rods in mind- those effectively let you use the associated feat whether or not you actually have it. Of course, they also let you use it spontaneously, without upping the spell level, so that's got to be part of the cost- but in that case perhaps it would be apt to compare them to the Sudden Metamagic feats from Complete Arcane.

In any case: the Metamagic Rods are priced such that the feats which add X spell levels to a spell when used normally, cost the same as other such feats. For example, the Silent and Extend rods cost the same amount, whether you're talking about Lesser, normal, or Greater. But compare Extend to Quicken and you see a major difference.

None of the Metamagic feats given Rods in the DMG have prerequisites to take them. So this sort of limits the utility of using that to price items based on feats. However, there is a potential guide in that the meta feats which cause greater increases in spell level require a higher-level caster to get proper use out of them; thus, while a 1st-level Wizard could take Quicken Spell as his 1st-level bonus feat, it's a useless choice until he hits 7th level (and then he can Quicken a cantrip by using up his precious 4th-level slot, woo hoo!).

So perhaps the real cost issue here is not so much, what's required to take the feat, but what's required to really use the feat. Find a "base level" where the feat works, and base the cost on that somehow.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

This is easy an easy question to answer for Escapologist: you can duplicate the feat by acquiring a ring of freedom of movement, which costs 40,000 gp (Hand-waving away the issue of extraordinary abilities.) The question is- what other divine abilities can be replicated so cheaply? Very few, probably; this makes me think that Escapologist is probably too weak, or the ring is too cheap.

My opinion: The ring is too cheap. It is an absolute, basically giving you +Infinity to the situations it protects against. In a world that scales infinitely, such a thing couldn't possibly cost 40000 gp.

Perhaps the ring would be better written as +(25?) to opposed grapple.

For non-epic play, these things are fine. They could effectively be +25 or whatever and no one would notice. But in Epic+, These things are too easy to get ahold of.

Escapleologist is a fine Divine ability, I think. There are other, better, options to fill your limited ability slots. And it can be defeated. (By a Transient power)

It certainly seems like a a lower-powered ability, and it could rightly so be an epic feat.
This line of analyzation leads to numerous headaches and degenerations of the system. "If Escapeologist can be a feat, why not Infinite X? or broken power Y?"
A standard must be set. Much of the brokenness of D20 rules comes from obtaining things before you should normally, or in a way you shoudn't normally. (See Magic Item pricing tables for details, and look up the Sword of Truestriking, or the Ring of Timestopping...)

I am not saying I know what that standard is, but I am saying It might be best to err on the side of caution and keep things of absolute nature in check.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey guys!

With regards bonus/rating feats, I think simplest is always best. Therefore I would say that one feat is equivalent to +1 for a weapon.

So an item that bestowed +1 feat would cost +2000 gp.

An item that bestowed +5 feats would be +50,000 gp.

An item that granted +6 feats would be an epic item +720,000 gp.

Additionally anything that grants an epic feat is also an epic item.

The question would then be, what about multiple items giving you individually less than 6 feats but collectively more.

Personally I would let them work in tandem, but not stack (if you can see the difference).

So you couldn't take two items with Epic Prowess x5 and have them stack.

What do you think?

 

[Cheiromancer]

an item that bestowed +1 feat would cost +2000 gp.

I think that's a good estimate- at least for low-level feats. Some of the weaker feats might be even less.

Great Fortitude, Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes together give +2 to all saves; that's 4,000 gp for three feats, or about 1300 per feat. But these do seem to be on the weak side.

Dodge gives +1 AC to one opponent, but is often house-ruled just to +1 AC. That would be like 1000 gp (if priced like armor). Or 2500 gp (if priced like a bonus to natural armor). It stacks with everything but doesn't count if you are flat-footed; about 2000 gp is probably fair.

A feat that has steeper prerequisites would probably be worth more. I'm not quite sure how to scale it yet, except for the intuition that it involves character wealth somehow.

Based on its price a ring of freedom of movement looks like it is worth at least 5 feats; it would cost 80,000 gp as a slotless item. Saying that a divine ability is worth more than 5 feats would be fine; it justifies Escapologist, at least. Especially if the ring should really be an epic item, which is quite plausible.

Still, when you take your 18th level feat your wealth is going from 340K to 440K, and so those two feat equivalents are each worth 50K. If a feat at 18th level is worth 50K, you should be able to take a feat that is worth the equivalent of 5 basic feats. +3 to all saves or something.

It would require some care in converting magic items to feats or vice versa, but pricing them like weapon bonuses - and recognizing that not all feats are created equal - should give some good guidelines. That and recognizing that a level of wealth is equal to two feats.

It would be kinda neat to have weapons enhanced with the appropriate feats, each adding +1 to the total enhancement. A sword of expertise, with built-in martial proficiency, weapon focus and weapon specialization, say. With greater magic weapon cast on it, it would be quite nice for a wizard.

The question of feat chains is relevant here; it is the stacking problem you refer to.

I think the idea has possibilities.