WhatGravitas
Explorer
It's 3,200 gp. And 3/day. And you cannot use it in consecutive rounds. It's pretty strong, but not worse than a metamagic rod of empowering. Combining both, on the other hand...glass said:
Cheers, LT.
MIC - Broken?
- Thread starter MithrasRahl
- Start date
Cheers, LT.
Bagpuss
Legend
Lord Tirian said:
Right but a Metamagic Lesser Rod of Empower is limited to 3rd level spells or lower for and cost 9,000, and is still nearly three times the cost.
A Metamagic Empower Rod is still limited to 6th and cost 32,500gp about ten times the cost.
And a Greater Metamagic rod is usable with all spell levels (well 9th and below) like the Gauntlets, but is 73,000gp about twenty times the cost.
Gauntlets can be used with any level of spell, although admittedly unlike the rod they are restricted to single targets (like your main villain). That limitation isn't really that much of a limitation tactically.
green slime
First Post
Bagpuss said:
Of course it is.... It depends on how many times there is a boss type monster included in the encounter.
Then it depends on the pacing: it is easily possible to exceed the 3/day number of encounters.
Then there are non-violent encounters, for which the gloves will be less than useful.
As I see it, they add just a dash of flash. 1d6 3 times per day isn't going to break anything.
Bagpuss said:
And by the time you're casting 9th level spells, you're now wearing a 3,200 gp item that's taking up one of your very valuable item slots.
Plus, you've got to find a targeted 9th level spell that you want someone taking damage from... and, after glancing through the PHB and the SC, all I'm finding for wizards that fits the bill is Energy Drain. Could be missing something, though.
Are they underpriced? Yeah, probably. Personally, I like it better than having all my wizards going for Gloves of Dexterity, but that's my opinion.I
WhatGravitas
Explorer
Compared to a lesser rod, it's really worse: Only single-target spells, eats up body slot, only usable every second round (that's huge!) - that's enough to justify the price for 1st - 3rd level spells.Bagpuss said:
Then there's the critical part, where they're really good. 4th (orbs of cheese), 5th, and 6th (disintegrate) spells are enjoying this immensely. But then, activating them uses up a swift action - one you could use to cast assay spell resistance or a quickened magic missile (dealing equivalent damage on average, but the MM is better because of always-hit - while the hellclaw gauntlets depend on the boosted spell).
Afterwards (7th+ level spells), you really need stuff like that to do enough damage to matter - you're better off with save-or-die spells, where getting some extra damage is nice, but not that powerful - after all, you want to kill something with them. And again, you will have massed up quickened spells that compete with the slot.
So the gauntlets are nothing more than a 3/day - quickened magic missile or scorching ray (damage-wise) - and only for high-level casters. That eat up a body slot and function only every second round.
Still, I agree: The gauntlets are VERY competitively priced. They're really very cheap, but the "true price" of them isn't much more, it's in the same magnitude, I'd say double the price as upper limit.
Cheers, LT.
UltimaGabe
First Post
Jhaelen said:
I, and all of my players, already did this WAAAAY before the MIC. I always tried to have every body slot covered- and remember, the body slots were introduced with the DMG, not the MIC.
Archimedes314
First Post
Thurbane said:
It's not an arms race unless your players are immature. Thing is, every single book has some measure of power creep. However, only the "absolute power" in terms of abstract numerical bonuses needs to change with power creep, the DM is always able to keep the "relative power" (which is the only thing that has any in game significance) between the PCs and NPCs/Monsters the same. The DM has to do this even if he's playing core only, the PCs increase in level and the DM must compensate by using encounters of higher CR (this is game-mechanically the same situation as the PCs becoming more powerful by any other means). And as the players become more experienced they are going to increase in tactical and optimization sophistication, for which the DM must also compensate. Only a poor and uncreative DM would need to "steal" his players tricks, rather, a good DM would utilize options of equal efficacy to those utilized by the players, often leading to more varied and tactically interesting combat encounters. Not to mention the fact that simply including traps and other non-combat encounters is enough to make those players focused solely on combat numbers take a step back and realize that this isn't what the game is all about.
Now this is not to say that there are not genuinely problematic abilities. Sometimes there are things that benefit one subset of characters disproportionally, leading to players of those characters stealing the show, as it were. There are also abilities which, generally through loopholes or oversight on the designers part, simply grant absurd levels of power (such as the festering anger disease in the Book of Vile Darkness).
Thurbane said:
While humorous, those characters, at least the third edition versions, explicitly break the rules in places (my knowledge of second edition sources is both too rusty and too limited to comment on those versions). They are not power-gamers/optimizers/whatever you want to call them; they are munchkins. Furthermore, it is basically a giant strawman. The fact that a player has an interest in making mechanically powerful characters does not mean they do not care for role-playing, the consistency of campaign worlds, or the fun of other players. A good optimizer only makes characters that at an appropriate power level for their group. I know that there are players who do not follow this stricture, and I have played with them, but to judge a whole category of gamers based on the worst of their lot is just silly.
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