NEW Immortals Handbook - Ascension thread

[mercucio]

UK,

Would the ability to turn/rebuke undead as a cleric equal to your HD be worth a full divine ability, less, or more?

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Couple of questions:

1.) What advantage does divine damage have over force damage, such that it warrants a lower damage die (d3 divine = d4 force)? Force damage actually has more advantages over divine damage that I can think of: no resistances or immunities (except against force dragons), bypasses miss chance against ethereal creatures, bypasses miss chance against incorporeal creatures, etc. Is there something about divine damage that makes it superior that I'm missing here?

2.) How should the Time Stop 9th-level spell be dealt with? As it is, there's no reason for any spellcaster to not cast a quickened and extremely extended Time Stop to recuperate whenever the going gets tough. It gets even worse with the Alter Reality ability of sidereals, since they're free to pop it off as a free action at will without any resistance from their opponents.

 

[Upper_Krust]

By the way, I have seen your post Pssthpok, I am just cotemplating the matter.

Hey dante!

Ok...that's a valid point...but...

I WANT MORE ARTIFACTS!!!

Yes, but sometimes less IS more.

Its like being able to carry a limited number of weapons in Halo. It forces you to make tactical choices. ie. it forces you to THINK.

Even if they are less powerful than standard. I want magic items in a plethora, but I want them to work even in anti-magic zones. I want them to bypass Epic damage reduction.

Epic damage reduction is borderline irrelevant as far as I can see.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy!

UK,

Would the ability to turn/rebuke undead as a cleric equal to your HD be worth a full divine ability, less, or more?

Well its certainly better than a feat. So I would pencil it in as a divine ability.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey there!

Couple of questions:

1.) What advantage does divine damage have over force damage, such that it warrants a lower damage die (d3 divine = d4 force)? Force damage actually has more advantages over divine damage that I can think of: no resistances or immunities (except against force dragons), bypasses miss chance against ethereal creatures, bypasses miss chance against incorporeal creatures, etc. Is there something about divine damage that makes it superior that I'm missing here?

Divine damage will penetrate Prismatic Wall/Sphere or Walls of Force etc. Technically magic force should also be stopped by Damage Reduction (whereas Divine Damage should not).

2.) How should the Time Stop 9th-level spell be dealt with? As it is, there's no reason for any spellcaster to not cast a quickened and extremely extended Time Stop to recuperate whenever the going gets tough. It gets even worse with the Alter Reality ability of sidereals, since they're free to pop it off as a free action at will without any resistance from their opponents.

Its something I always planned to deal with in Chronicle, although 4th Edition may beat me to that. I agree it is an annoyance that destabilizes a few things.

If some player abuses it have them attacked by Phanes the next time they use it. Perhaps every time you use time stop there is a cumulative 1% chance (per round duration) of a Phane appearing.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Couple of questions:

1.) What advantage does divine damage have over force damage, such that it warrants a lower damage die (d3 divine = d4 force)? Force damage actually has more advantages over divine damage that I can think of: no resistances or immunities (except against force dragons), bypasses miss chance against ethereal creatures, bypasses miss chance against incorporeal creatures, etc. Is there something about divine damage that makes it superior that I'm missing here?

2.) How should the Time Stop 9th-level spell be dealt with? As it is, there's no reason for any spellcaster to not cast a quickened and extremely extended Time Stop to recuperate whenever the going gets tough. It gets even worse with the Alter Reality ability of sidereals, since they're free to pop it off as a free action at will without any resistance from their opponents.

The advantage of divine damage is that there are no resistances to it. Period. Wanna damage a Time Lord? Divine blast will do it (if you can hit). You could arguably construct an epic spell to resist force effects. (Mimic resistance of force dragons? Ad-Hoc force resistance?) But yea, divine [Effect] deals a pathetic ammount of damage. It is good for absolutely killing mooks. (and by mooks, I mean demigods) but in the hands of anything that could deal decent damage with it, there are way better things to pick up. (Atomic [Effect] and Gravitic [Effect] are clearly superior)

Timestop is one of those things that has an effect greater than the game mechanics can easily balance. Compared to the Maze spell, which is like a reverse Timestop, Timestop is infinitely better because it 1: stops time for everyone in the omniverse but you. Thats like an infinitely twinned Maze spell right there. 2: Is a self-buff, meaning it doesn't actually stop time, but rather speeds you up to ridiculous speeds, meaning by its very nature, unless you ready an action, theres no way to defend against it. and 3: It is metamagic-able, meaning it only gets More unfair as the levels progress. Casting Timestop basically means if there ever was a chance you could win the fight, you do so immediately. A useful mechanic for speeding up epic level play, but since it generally is used on the BBEG at the end of the adventure, it makes for a very anti-climactic fight. (And it is stupid to have to give slipstream to every villain if they don't already have it; Its good to let the players use those powers, but if you had a really cool final encounter planned you probably want it to last longer than a PC rattling off a list of spells he casts and rolling dozens of saves in the first round.)

However, any being with the Slipstream or Transtemporal powers would likely ignore Timestop. (The wording on slipstream works 'like' Spell-stowaway: Timestop, but I think it should be clarified a bit as it seems intended to work differently) Also, I think a being with the Time portfolio, at Prophet level or higher, would be immune. That still leaves lots of epic and divine beings with little defense, but a strict interpretation of the spell (Self Buffs and Delay metamagic only) makes it a bit less auto-win. Using the ELH varient where beings can check SR (or make a will save) against Timestop also makes it leagues more fair.

 

[WarDragon]

Before everyone panics over time stop, I'd like to remind folks that you can't affect any other creatures while it's running. Sure, it's good for buffing and summoning, but that's it. Also, it can't be extended, only empowered.

 

[mercucio]

Epic damage reduction is borderline irrelevant as far as I can see.

Considering all deities have epic damage reduction, doesn't that mean any weapon they wield is capable of overcoming epic damage reduction? If so then even a +1 weapon wielded by a deity can overcome DR X/epic.

 

[mercucio]

Another mechanics question.

I'm working on another divine ability/possible weapon special ability that allows the possessor to capture the soul of any creature they slay with a successful level check against a DC of 20 + target's HD + divine rank (if any). The possessor can capture up to their divine rank in foes in this manner, with divine foes counting as their divine rank in foes. Thus a greater deity with this ability could imprison 16 non-divine souls in with ability, two lesser deities, or a single greater deity. So far so good. My problem lies in what to do with the imprisoned souls. Should you be capable of expending a soul (thus destroying and requiring a wish/miracle to bring back) to do 1 or more of the following:
-Provide an experience point reserve for casting spells/pay the experience point cost of a single spell.
-Heal the possessor
-Cast X levels of spells for free/restore X levels of expended spells.
-Gain X bonus to rolls for N number of rounds

ect.

 

[dante58701]

Only one problem with "less IS more", I play a lot of knife/dagger/shuriken throwers, so I NEED an essentially disposable arsenal.

My players also make heavy use of three-weapon fighting. It's immensely stupid to even have three-weapon fighting in existence, when you didn't bother to account for 6 artifacts.

Who is going to use 4 artifacts and 2 crappy weapons. It's a matter of equilibrium.

And then of course we have those scary multi-armed folk who make use of lots of weapons.

There needs to be a way to get more artifacts.

There is one way to bypass this problem, but I'm not going to mention what it is for fear you would find a way to negate it.

Maybe a divine ability? A cosmic ability? Perhaps a ruling for those with extra portfolios?

There has to be something legitimate.