ZEITGEIST Please offer balance and overall feedback for this ZEITGEIST paragon paths

[skotothalamos]

Showed the Steamsuit Pilot to my Technologist player, who is also a bit of a power gamer.

Response: "Activate and deactivate the suit as a free action? So, if we're up against something that dominates, I can deactivate at the end of my turn, and then activate again at the start of my turn. That way, if I get dominated, all it can force me to do on my first turn is re-activate the suit instead of attacking."

 

[Elfshire]

Thoughts that occur to me as I read this:

I'm wondering if the Skyseer prerequisites should be Nature and Religion, since Religion was used to identify the celestial icons in Chapter 3's ziggurat.

Also isn't the existence of Reida as the plane of time a secret? It seems purposefully not mentioned in the original Player's Guide. Seems odd to just give it away in the PP description.

Area-of-effect domination is too powerful, at least for an encounter power. Maybe just one creature is subject to Av's rider?

What happens if the bigass firegem from Straddling Realities (Jiese) is ignited?

For Straddling Realities (Apet), it might be easier to simply delete the text that says the distance is effectively infinite... otherwise I could see players using Walking the Cosmos as an argument that they can still attack across the threshold.

Make it So is absolutely too powerful. Should probably reword to "the attack automatically hits or misses, your choice."

What the heck do Rockets do? Or are they supposed to be grenades for the RPG weapon from Chapter 4?

I'm not sure most players who originally chose to play Yerasol Veterans were expecting to suddenly manifest psionic powers, but on the other hand turning PTSD into a fighting style is too damned cool for words.

Polyhistor is interesting... it's a bit complex, but otherwise seems really cool.

The City Whispers needs a duration listed, which I assume is until end of encounter / 5 minutes.

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And may I just say you guys are doing a fantastic job with the campaign and its supplements thus far! I feel like most of the posts I make on this forum are criticisms and corrections (to be fair, you asked for it), so I just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying everything you've put out so far, and I eagerly await more installments - even behind schedule, it's worth the wait. Keep it up!

 

[RangerWickett]

Showed the Steamsuit Pilot to my Technologist player, who is also a bit of a power gamer.

Response: "Activate and deactivate the suit as a free action? So, if we're up against something that dominates, I can deactivate at the end of my turn, and then activate again at the start of my turn. That way, if I get dominated, all it can force me to do on my first turn is re-activate the suit instead of attacking."

Okay, duly noted.

Reida's existence was sort of meant to be a secret, but it's not very key. While in a perfect world I could make it so the player only discovers its existence when they gain this paragon path and realize, "Wow, there's a whole extra planet I never learned about. I wonder what that means...," I want to keep all the player information in one place. So a small mystery has to be sacrificed.

I'm switching Av's power to dazing and granting insubstantial, because you're in a dreamworld. So your enemy can't take as many actions, and thus is a big threat, but he's harder to hurt.

A big-ass firegem would burn slowly, like a pile of coal. A big-ass pile of firedust would burst like gunpowder, but that's neither here nor there.

I've switched Make it So to 'hit or miss.'

Rockets are basically ranged 20/40 grenades, and since you fire them from your blaster they can benefit from enhancement bonuses.

 

[Starfox]

Walking the Cosmos: you might want to say that this only applies to ranged powers.

 

[Shimrath]

-Vision of the Fall: This insta-kills all minions on the board pretty much. Seems powerful.

Last session, the followers of Chesimox attacked. The Constables put the camp on alert and ventured forth to battle the oncoming hoard. . .including 40 minions.

My Vekeshi player asked me to clarify how Vision of the Fall worked, realizing that it had the potential to remove all 40 minions in a single strike. I decided, on the fly, that the power would effect any allies of the target within 10 squares of the target, rather than "any that you can see". A good 20 or so minions were still obliterated.

While i think the power is brilliant in a narrative sense, i feel like it's too powerful mechanically. It's only really a problem when minions are involved, but i've not seen any other powers that damage every enemy in sight.

As a fix, i might keep my "10 square" limitation and making it a daily power instead of an encounter.

Another fix might involve a special rule for minions, perhaps requiring a secondary attack roll?

Any thoughts? Does anybody else feel like the power is too much?

Vision of the Fall - Vekeshi Excoriant Attack 11 (Extended Player's Guide page 31)

Thanks,
-Shimrath.

 

[RangerWickett]

By adventure 8 or 9, I'd worked out a statblock for large units, which I think worked better than treating foes as a bunch of minions.

See Satyr Phalanx in adventure 9. It's a minion (since by the time the party is 20th level, a bunch of foot soldiers are no threat), but has this mechanic:

Each phalanx consists of forty satyrs working in tandem, filling the space of a Huge creature. The unit needs only fill 9 contiguous spaces, and it can move through any opening an individual satyr could move through.

Any effect that deals at least 18 damage ‘kills’ the phalanx—wounding enough of the satyrs that the rest panic and disperse. Any lesser amount of damage bloodies the phalanx, or ‘kills’ it if it is already bloodied.

Its attack mode is to make a really low-damage attack against each enemy within 2 squares.

In the same adventure, a Centaur Cavalry Unit works in a similar fashion. It's a dozen centaurs working in tandem, and counts as a gargantuan creature with one pool of 82 HP. Their attack mode lets them move and make an attack against each enemy that it passes within 2 squares of while moving.

If I were redoing the 4e version, I'd remake those sorts of encounters with different design sensibilities.