Official Rules Updates (March 02, 2010)

[eamon]

There goes my low level gnome illusionist:

Let's see; the racial feat now doesn't stack with expertise; doesn't apply to non-illusion feats, and grants a feat bonus to damage rolls to illusion powers. Of course, several illusion powers (certainly various low-level ones) don't actually do any damage...

Which means that there's the choice of not taking the feat and going for the bland expertise feat as one of the few low-level feats there are; or keeping the feat and restricting oneself to illusion spells only (otherwise there's really no point in the racial feat rather than expertise) and then picking up damaging illusion powers. Which was kind of precisely not the point of the illusionist...

There's no question that a scaling bonus gets out of hand at later levels; but I'm not particularly enthused at the thought of redesigning a PC because of balance problems 20 levels later.

If they hadn't screwed up expertise in the first place, this wouldn't have been necessary.

 

[kerbarian]

Righteous Brand is updated in the CB, so I would assume the rest are as well.

Winged Horde has been updated, but not correctly. Instead of being changed to 1d6 damage, the "Hit" line is now missing completely.

 

[Walking Dad]

What I don't like, is that making a character without the builder (and I cannot install the builder on my home-no-internet-computer) becomes horribly difficult. It's like memorizing the last errata first and then open the books.

And why did they update the tiefling hellfire blood feat, but not the gnome phantasmist?

 

[Starfox]

Potions of Clarity got heavily nerfed. Now they have level limits on what powers they can be used with. Additionally they are based of item dailies, instead of healing surges. Is that a first for potions? Very irregular.

 

[fba827]

Potions of Clarity got heavily nerfed. Now they have level limits on what powers they can be used with. Additionally they are based of item dailies, instead of healing surges. Is that a first for potions? Very irregular.

That is indeed a first for potions: The general (and only) rule up until now has been potions = healing surge, elixirs = daily item use. Thus this becomes the first exception to that rule. I kind of wish they just called it an elixir now though... but i can understand that they already have the item 'out there' in treasures just waiting to be discovered in modules so they wouldn't want to cause confusion by changing the name itself... *sigh*.

 

[Kzach]

I'm dissappointed that Healer's Mercy and Astral Seal were left unscathed. I am seriously considering a houserule that turns the HP of Astral Seal into temporary HP.

Healer's Mercy most definitely needs a nerf of some type. It's so grossly overpowered compared to all the other CD options for a cleric that I'm surprised it's lasted so long unchanged.

Astral Seal could definitely use a nerf as well, although I'm unsure how one would do it without making it useless. Changing to temp hit points would make it rather pointless (it would no longer get a benefit from Healer's Lore or other stackable healing benefits), whereas it currently heals too much (often around 9 to 10 hit points at 1st-level) and puts the power into unbelievably good territory.

 

[1of3]

Hellfire Blood now stacks with Weapon Focus.

Sorry, I don't understand.

Hellfire Blood is about attack, Weapon Focus is about damage. They have nothing to do with each other and never had.

If you wanted to say "Weapon Expertise" these feats just got their bonus types exchanged. They did stack before.

 

[DracoSuave]

Sorry, I don't understand.

Hellfire Blood is about attack, Weapon Focus is about damage. They have nothing to do with each other and never had.

If you wanted to say "Weapon Expertise" these feats just got their bonus types exchanged. They did stack before.

Except, of course, for the part where Hellfire Blood gives, and has always given, a bonus to damage equal to positive one.

And now, instead of a feat bonus, it's a normal bonus.

They have -everything- to do with each other, and always have. Except before, they failed to stack, and now, they do stack.

 

[Starfox]

It would be nice to see some more buffs in with the nerfs...I always feel like the errata is always knocking the power out of everything. So of it deserved, some of it not so much.

I agree, but I also see why they do it this way; the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Trouble is, if they wrote a rule making some concept unviably weak, that concept is likely to remain bad forever, with no relief in sight.

[...]I'm also on the fence on saving throw penalties. My problem with them isn't the duration its the scaling. I often feel that saving throws with no penalty aren't that strong. I would usually rather have a power that lasts "until the end of my next turn". With things like cunning weapons they get a bit better.

Not wanting to derail this tread, I forked my reply to this to a new Saving Throws Post March Errata thread.

 

[Nifelhein]

Hmm expertise changed... hmmm