Official Rules Updates (March 02, 2010)

[Flipguarder]

Igatwona ,dooiheathray!? Thrayhealookinfoathray!

 

[Elric]

Orb, I think, DOES do this now. It's a free action, so you should be able to use it anytime, including in response to seeing the roll.

You can use it any time, but:

You can designate one creature you have cast a wizard spell upon that has an effect that lasts until the subject succeeds on a saving throw. That creature takes a penalty to its next saving throw against that effect equal to your Wisdom modifier.

By the time a saving throw has already been rolled, it shouldn't be the "next saving throw." There would be no reason for the current wording if the intent was "impose the penalty to one saving throw, after it was rolled, as a free action."

 

[Colmarr]

Goodbye to three of my most loathed game abuses
...
* Righteous Brand. Burn in hell you over the top 1st level at-will
...

Using a PHB1 at-will exactly as it was intended to be used is a "game abuse"?

You certainly shouldn't be lumping Righteous Brand in with Orbizard cheese and Student of Caiphon avengers

 

[hvg3akaek]

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.

hah, that's not WotC's way.

Powerful stuff gets errata, weak stuff gets new books published with similar feat/item/powers that are more powerful.

And need future errata...

 

[BobTheNob]

Using a PHB1 at-will exactly as it was intended to be used is a "game abuse"?

You certainly shouldn't be lumping Righteous Brand in with Orbizard cheese and Student of Caiphon avengers

Granted, and cheerfully withdrawn. I guess Im so happy because all the things I had to houserule before, I no longer have to house rule (righteous brand being one of them).

 

[Destil]

Their DR isn't scaling good enough, considered their many melee range / close powers and supposed secondary defender role. (They also nerfed shield use while wildshaped.)

Were the swarm druid over-powered and the two-weapon barbarian is still fine? At least make the bonus of hide expertise rise with tiers.

Light armor raises only by 1 / tier. Without an increasing added bonus (like a primary or secondary ability you rise at every opportunity) it falls to far behind the heavy armor.

Barbarians don't need it, they have agility to deal with scaling.

Druids do, and the DR doesn't stack at a good rate. I agree on that, my post was a bit unclear.

But they just join a continually growing list of builds with AC scaling problems.
Str/Wis ranger
Cha/Con warlock
Wis/Con shaman
Str/Cha barbarian EDIT: The new feat + agility fix this build and this build only.
Wis/Con (swarm) druid

None of these guys can qualify for heavy without putting points into Str or Con in addition to their secondary stat, which is annoying.

I'm leaning towards adding your highest ability score modifier to defense when using light armor, end of story, at this point. Just for simplicity.

You can use it any time, but: By the time a saving throw has already been rolled, it shouldn't be the "next saving throw." There would be no reason for the current wording if the intent was "impose the penalty to one saving throw, after it was rolled, as a free action."

The timing on 'free actions' is pretty vague, but the general trend by WotC has been to treat them as interrupts, rather than reactions. Which is why I believe this works by the RAW. But I'd love to see free action timing clarified in general.

 

[BobTheNob]

I'm leaning towards adding your highest ability score modifier to defense when using light armor, end of story, at this point. Just for simplicity.

Im for throwing away using stats for AC all together and just saying AC is based on the armor you wear (or other essateric factors such as sword mage warding), making light armor mechanically identical to heavy, but with slightly less AC for the payoff being mobility.

 

[Destil]

Im for throwing away using stats for AC all together and just saying AC is based on the armor you wear (or other essateric factors such as sword mage warding), making light armor mechanically identical to heavy, but with slightly less AC for the payoff being mobility.

Solid idea. Incorporate masterwork bonuses based on character level and I think this is pretty much perfect.

 

[KarinsDad]

Im for throwing away using stats for AC all together and just saying AC is based on the armor you wear (or other essateric factors such as sword mage warding), making light armor mechanically identical to heavy, but with slightly less AC for the payoff being mobility.

Interesting idea, but it might be a bit problematic to implement, especially if one were to keep shields as they currently are and the number of armors as they currently are. But if one were to drop out 2 of the armors:

Cloth = +0 AC
Leather = +1 AC
Chain = +2 AC
Plate = +3 AC
Shield = +1 AC

Same level monsters hit 50% of the time against Cloth. 30% of the time Plate and Shield. A monster 4 levels higher, 70% and 50%.

This could actually work. Do we really need 6 different armors with an AC delta of basically 7 (i.e. 14 through 20) at first level?


In our game, the Cleric took 2 feats to get her AC up 2 and it's the rare game where a Wizard or Sorcerer doesn't take Leather. I think the game has a fundamental flaw when the players think they need to do this, just so that they won't get smacked with monster debilitating conditions too often. It's more or less a feat tax for these classes.


Btw, I think most of this month's errata (that I've read so far) is good.

 

[Xeterog]

surprised that no one has mentioned the Blood Pulse nerf...I'm expecting our wizard to complain loudly about it...