NEW Immortals Handbook - Ascension thread

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Upper_Krust said:
Hey Pssthpok dude! :)

Hey hey, UK!

Well it breaks, but it does so less easily than WotCs core rules...*cough* Hulking Hurler *cough*.

IIRC, Hulking Hurler wasn't "core", per se. It was in a splatbook.

What would I pay them with? Are there designers out there who who take a share of profits rather than a fixed wage? If so let them be known.

Depends on how much of a percentage you're willing to part with. :)

The only section that wasn't fully fleshed out (at time of beta release) were the Portfolios.

Those, half the Divine and the Cosmic+ abilities; the original release was bare-bone... and by that I mean it had a cover and the feats.

As for mechanical loopholes, its an impossibility to have that many options at that level of power using the d20 system and there not be loopholes.

I can tell you right now that Uncanny Power Attack needs to be a Divine ability; either that or there needs to be one-less level of Critical Threat/Multiplier in the feat range, i.e. IC and ICM as feats, GC and GCM as Divine, etc.

Thanks for the feedback mate.

Sorry to be a down note about all this, but it's hard not to at this stage. You understand where I'm coming from? It's just taking (sympathetically) a long damn time for this book to be finished.
 

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Upper_Krust said:
Now of course there are a few things Pssthpok may or may not have taken into account.

Let's see what you've got.

1. The Hecatonchiere Challenge Rating is almost certainly dodgy (that includes my v5 CR for it).

Almost certainly, but I was citing a play-by-numbers scenario.

2. By min/maxing, power gaming and cherry picking magic items its easily possible to add +30% effectiveness to any character (ie. ECL 60).

I agree, but this fighter was a dwarven axe specialist with no real tweaking outside of appropriate feat selection. The only feats made ready were those from the SRD and the IHB.

3. Like the oft mentioned Tarrasque weakness against flying opponents the Hecatonchiere is likewise a creature of habit. It is well within the reach of epic characters (certainly those of sufficient level to fight a monster of its supposed CR) to have sufficient damage reduction to render the monster relatively impotent. Therefore we can conclude that the design of the monster is a tad lopsided.

It's ability to penetrate DR and its mobility never came into effect. The fighter won inish, dire charged, and the Hec was done.

4. Could you build a Hecatonchiere of equal CR that was a more serious threat - of course you could...

Sure: the tighter/specifically you fit the creature's abilities, the more power you get out of the CR; besides, that's not really the problem. What is, is that the SRD Hec was no match for a 30 HD fighter with the Hero-deity template.


...What happens if I give the Hecatonchiere's armour the Heavy Fortification special ability? Does your hero-deity then still defeat it in one round?

It certainly whittles away at the damage output. I don't think a Hec with heavy fort armor would drop in the same scenario.
 

The SRD Hecatonchieres is badly converted actually- it's supposed to have 18 feats but only has 17 in the entry, and the only feats given it in the 3.5 SRD beyond the original ELH list are Epic Toughness (two of them no less) and two Epic Weapon Focus feats in place of the old Penetrate Damage Reduction (which was arguably better in 3.0 than in 3.5). Those are just about the worst feat choices I can think of for the creature to replace the old version, particularly the Epic Toughness (which is just as suboptimal a feat choice in Epic territory as the basic Toughness feat is below Epic). It shows the same lazy slapdash approach to converting the old 3.0 ELH monsters to 3.5 that I noticed with other such monsters as I've used them in my game. The stats for the Gibbering Orb, for example, required a complete and total skills rewrite (and a hard look at several other details) before they properly squared with the new rules, with all the mistakes I found in the SRD entry.

So, I'd say the current SRD former-ELH monsters are typically quite over-CR'ed, since no real effort was apparently made to make them dangerous compared to what they should ostensibly be facing. I'm actually not surprised to hear that the Hec got soloed.

That said, I do have to remark that dealing over 1000 damage (SRD Hec has 1028 hp) with a Full Attack at only 30 HD seems a tad high. So yes, there are balance issues somewhere. Given what I said above and what I've seen using SRD monsters in my own game, my first inclination is to go against the SRD- it's proven untrustworthy to me. But I've also seen that damage from Power Attack (particularly when using 2-handed weapons) gets really absurd in Epic territory, with all the buffs characters can and do stack on, so any enhancements to it must be looked at (and tested) veeeery carefully or they'll almost certainly be broken coming out the starting gate.
 
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Upper_Krust said:
What would I pay them with? Are there designers out there who who take a share of profits rather than a fixed wage? If so let them be known.
Ordinarily I would(considering that's how I make all of my money, damned programs that don't sell), we could talk once I'm done with my current project (Begining November), I leave Tuesday Morning for a 6 week blitz of training people on my program, most freelancers such as your and myself rely upon profit sharing as oppossed to fixed wages
 

Pssthpok said:
Hey hey, UK!

Hiya mate! :)

Pssthpok said:
IIRC, Hulking Hurler wasn't "core", per se. It was in a splatbook.

So it only had the resources of WotC to draw upon for design, balance and playtesting, which was the point I was making.

Depends on how much of a percentage you're willing to part with. :)

Well it would depend on the percentage of the work in terms of pages.

1 page of text = 1 page.
A half page* of (b&w) art = 2 pages (of text)
Full Page* of (b&w) art = 4 pages (of text) - NB. There are no full pages of art in the Bestiary, only half pages.
Cover* = 16 pages (of text)

e.g. So if a book has 90 pages of material and 30 (half page) interior illustrations plus cover, thats 166 pages altogether, or 0.6% per page.

*Those are printed sizes, not illustrated sizes. I work up 150%, so something half page in the books is basically A4/US Letter size when drawn.

Those, half the Divine and the Cosmic+ abilities; the original release was bare-bone... and by that I mean it had a cover and the feats.

I don't mean the shape of the beta document when it was released, I meant the state of my IH notes when the beta document was released.

I can tell you right now that Uncanny Power Attack needs to be a Divine ability; either that or there needs to be one-less level of Critical Threat/Multiplier in the feat range, i.e. IC and ICM as feats, GC and GCM as Divine, etc.

I think Uncanny Power Attack is very tricky and fortunately begins with the letter 'U' so it should be an easy enough change to divine.

Sorry to be a down note about all this, but it's hard not to at this stage. You understand where I'm coming from? It's just taking (sympathetically) a long damn time for this book to be finished.

I'm stuck in a nightmare position at the moment with seemingly no easy exit, I can only do my best.
 

Pssthpok said:
Let's see what you've got.

More than enough I assure you. ;)

Pssthpok said:
Almost certainly, but I was citing a play-by-numbers scenario.

But with foresight enough that you knew it was wrong.

Pssthpok said:
I agree, but this fighter was a dwarven axe specialist with no real tweaking outside of appropriate feat selection. The only feats made ready were those from the SRD and the IHB.

Thats fair enough.

Pssthpok said:
It's ability to penetrate DR and its mobility never came into effect. The fighter won inish, dire charged, and the Hec was done.

I am curious to hear how you bested its AC 70 with each attack? I'm not saying you couldn't one round a Hecatonchiere with a normal build, I am just curious to see if its statistically more likely than not.

Pssthpok said:
Sure: the tighter/specifically you fit the creature's abilities, the more power you get out of the CR; besides, that's not really the problem. What is, is that the SRD Hec was no match for a 30 HD fighter with the Hero-deity template.

I had a quick glance at the Hecatonchiere and within a few minutes had it dealing 2d6+33/15-20/x4 with a 25% chance of overcoming crit immunity. Attack bonus was +83.

Its also about four feats too few, not to mention Multi-dexterity, Multi-weapon Rend and Multi-weapon Fighting should probably be free feats.

I changed it to DR 25/-, Fast Healing 25, Regeneration 25. According to my calculations it should have Charisma 38, which means a +14 deflection bonus. I dropped Natural Armour to +26 and it gained a +4 divine bonus. I increased the insight bonus on AC to +25 (1/2 per head) for AC 91.

You would also imagine that although it can only bring 15 arms to melee a medium opponent that it could probably also use a similar number of ranged attacks against such an opponent. So 15 melee and 15 ranged (those arms near the top) on a single opponent per round. The further you back off the more ranged attacks its going to be able to make against you (Maximum 75 I think).

I would probably just give it critical hit immunity rather than through its armour.

Spell Resistance drops to 66.

Pssthpok said:
It certainly whittles away at the damage output. I don't think a Hec with heavy fort armor would drop in the same scenario.

So does that mean I win...? :p
 

Like I was saying...beating an ELH Hecaton is definitely nothing worth bragging about. It completely lacks any real threat capacity. Especially if they aren't played intelligently.

Using two separate rules for deities in the same game is statistically proven to be flawed.
 
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Hi dante mate! :)

dante58701 said:
Like I was saying...beating an ELH Hecaton is definitely nothing worth bragging about. It completely lacks any real threat capacity. Especially if they aren't played intelligently.

Using two separate rules for deities in the same game is statistically proven to be flawed.

It is using the same rules, its just not a well designed monster.

What this does is highlight the difference between two monsters of the same challenge rating, one well designed, one badly designed.

I would proffer that, much like a character can be optimised and min/maxed to be +30% more effective, you can likewise sub-optimise a character/monster to be -30% less effective than the sum of its parts. The Hecatonchiere is one such example of a sub-optimal build.
 

Upper_Krust said:
Hiya mate! :)

Hey hey, UK!

Well it would depend on the percentage of the work in terms of pages.

1 page of text = 1 page.
A half page* of (b&w) art = 2 pages (of text)
Full Page* of (b&w) art = 4 pages (of text) - NB. There are no full pages of art in the Bestiary, only half pages.
Cover* = 16 pages (of text)

e.g. So if a book has 90 pages of material and 30 (half page) interior illustrations plus cover, thats 166 pages altogether, or 0.6% per page.

So are you looking primarily for art or writing/stat-blocks?

I think Uncanny Power Attack is very tricky and fortunately begins with the letter 'U' so it should be an easy enough change to divine.

Given the unpredictability of that particular power, I think Divine is the right spot for it. It can go low (vs. high AC opponents) or tremendously high. Best to err on the side of caution.

I'm stuck in a nightmare position at the moment with seemingly no easy exit, I can only do my best.

I understand, which is why I suggest trying to get more people behind the actual development process.
 

Upper_Krust said:
But with foresight enough that you knew it was wrong.

As 'wrong' as it could ever be to use a monster that hasn't been revised and that doesn't (IMXP) see a lot of table time.

I am curious to hear how you bested its AC 70 with each attack?

Well, (and my bad on this, all ye Pak-haters; I noticed this going over what notes I have on the matter), Melee Weapon Mastery and Weapon Supremacy were involved - feats from PH2 that gives a +2 to attack and the ability to 'add +5' or 'take 10' to attacks in your action.
So, with a fat (but legal) Str and a legal weapon for his level, the dwarf was swinging at +68: 2+ (haste), 2+, 7+, 12+, 17+. Using Supremacy, it was 2+ (haste), 2+, [free hit], 12+, 12+ to hit; with Uncanny Power Attack, any attack bonus that exceeded 70 was turned into 2:1 Power Attack; on crits that turned into 14:1 (thanks to a x7 crit multiplier: x3>>x5>>x7).

I had a quick glance at the Hecatonchiere and within a few minutes had it dealing 2d6+33/15-20/x4 with a 25% chance of overcoming crit immunity. Attack bonus was +83.

Its also about four feats too few, not to mention Multi-dexterity, Multi-weapon Rend and Multi-weapon Fighting should probably be free feats.

I changed it to DR 25/-, Fast Healing 25, Regeneration 25. According to my calculations it should have Charisma 38, which means a +14 deflection bonus. I dropped Natural Armour to +26 and it gained a +4 divine bonus. I increased the insight bonus on AC to +25 (1/2 per head) for AC 91.

That looks more on-the-mark for a monster of its CR.

You would also imagine that although it can only bring 15 arms to melee a medium opponent that it could probably also use a similar number of ranged attacks against such an opponent. So 15 melee and 15 ranged (those arms near the top) on a single opponent per round. The further you back off the more ranged attacks its going to be able to make against you (Maximum 75 I think).

So long as the attack rolls are in the area, that would make a fine challenge.

I would probably just give it critical hit immunity rather than through its armour.

Spell Resistance drops to 66.

Neither of these are unreasonable.

So does that mean I win...? :p

For now. :] :p
 

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