Hey GQuail mate!
GQuail said:
Well, now I've skimmed Ascension a few times, I've not terribly much to add on what others have said.
* The templates are great, and the breakdown of CR and ECL is really useful. The way in which it is assumed previous critters of certain sizes effectively already have it is a nice touch IMHO.
Of course if I reworked the Balor, Pir Fiend, Solar
et al they would probably be somewhat different, so its not an exact match. But I think the main concern is going to be how such beings are equipped.
GQuail said:
* The re-jigging of the Divine Rank scale to suit your universal take is something I like: it offers a lot more room for fine adjustment on bigger beasties.
I never liked the sound of Divine Rank 0.
GQuail said:
* The rules for Worship Points are cool. I like the fact that there are three different ways of earning them, since it helps people who want gods in their campaign to work one way or another to have different examples of how it might work. I'm tempted to do a campaign with worship ditched entirely, and all points coming through quintessence: so only god-slaying makes new gods.
Well the Glory stuff is the slow but detailed approach, the Power stuff is the parallels EXP approach and the Resonance is 'flip the switch' quick approach.
GQuail said:
* The feats, as others have noted, have some issues: but in the case of the "duplicated" feats. this is inevitable. When you're trying to patch all the feat holes you're bound to do the same thing someone else has done. In the case of your improved toughness, perhaps upping it's powerlevel to make an epic version is in order? As for the Wish feat, I say just chuck it: it looks like a lot more heartache than it's worth, and with your alternate magic rules might not really matter anyway.
True. I actually have half a dozen epic feats on standby (that I concocted over the weekend) so, based on what people tell me are the weakest feats on the current list I will probably substitute a few.
One likelyhood is that Improved Critical Multiplier will get a kick upstairs (to Divine Abilities) but have its effect doubled - since I was rating it initially as 3 feats.
I may add Greater Critical and Perfect Critical.
So you would have:
Improved Critical
Greater Critical
Superior Critical
Perfect Critical (where 17-20 will always crit).
I also may make a few minor changes to the Forked Tongue, Silver Tongue feats and kick them up to Divine to join Razor Tongue.
I forgot to add a couple of Sneak Attack feats I have lurking about.
GQuail said:
* The idea of metamartial feats is great: I'm going to try and drop these into my normal game as soon as, even for my non-epic PCs, as a new trick for fighters to spice up combat a bit.
The metamartial stuff in the beta is so unfinished I almost kept it out. Expect some new cool stuff added in that regard.
GQuail said:
* The cosmic EGG?
Well I did swop emails with the main man a few years back regarding deities, so I always see him as the "guv'nor" as far as D&D is concerned (no disrespect to big Dave).
GQuail said:
All in all, I'm quite impressed. I've still not given every feat a proper examination,
In fairness you could argue neither have I.
GQuail said:
but there's clearly a lot here, and the addition of the bigger feats ought to offer a lot more fun. Very chuffed so far, and the promises inside of the contents of future books have me all the more excited. ;-)
Hey! You haven't even seen all of Ascension yet!
