Relics and Rituals 2!!! I GOT IT!!! (More)

[warpmind]

What about the rituals, ¡better or worse than RR ones?

 

[Nightfall]

No problem Elstor

Warp,

Some are good (like Ban of Mesos)
Others not so good (like Pyre of Sacrifice. Not quite the immunity imagine but it's okay)

The rest a pretty decent but nothing extrodinary .

 

[Graf]

a long post from someone with little of interest to say

Btw, thanks Grraf for showing up! I have posted my review folks of R&R2. I hope you find it informative!

You know what they say:
A-horde-of-SL-fanboys comes where Nightfall goes.

In the middle of that project right now, as a matter of fact. Most of the Feats got bumped to post-15th Level (although mostly for flavor reasons). The spells I'll likely get tend to in a week or two. I've found, though, that about the best way for balancing 3rd Party Spells is to delegate them to specific PClasses. This helps to add flavor to the PClasses, and tends to help balance them quite a bit (i.e., a slightly beafy 1st Level Spell is not that overpowered if it isn't available until 10th or 15th Level).

I'd be curious to see what you've done. I haven't the time.... stuff in the BoEM series is simply 'lost lore' and thus possibly more powerful but not availible to PCs (in other words they have to find it...).

the most interesting thing is, their Power Resistance is equal to that of any Spell Resistance the creature might have. Thus a Slacerian Dragon who has say a SR of 15, has a PR of 15 also. [/B]

This is the standard rule according to the Psionics Handbook.

Fire Spiders.. whoah, at 500 gp a pop, I'd think twice before casting it! It deals only 6 pts of fire damage / square .. not too good. I wouldn't use it. It's friggin' 6th level! Or am I missing something?

Combat spells that require 500 gp worth of material componets are kinda irritating.
IMC the PCs spent their first 5 levels desperately trying to get back to civilization (any civilization... though for a while they settled for some place where they wouldn't be attacked several times a day...). While I know that most D&D games (including obvously the setting the book was written for) are high powered, high-wealth games where you can wander into the village store and pick up 500 gp worth of materials just like that.
So far in my game the players would never have been able to cast the spell.... clearly the spell isn't broken if its impossible but its a weird choice.

I've only look through the book and taken a few things not played with it in a full campaign for a while but I get the feeling that they were definitly trying to push the rules envelope by increasing the utility of spells. Some stuff worked for some people most of it didn't work for me. The spells I was willing to give the PCs they didn't particularly want.

Thanks. That was the point behind writing the spell. When I was reading R&R it really bugged me that the Penumbral Lords got stuck with a rarely usable spell for 9th level. So I wrote what I thought would be a cool spell for them. Honestly thats the best way to get into something like this, find what the weak point is and fix it.

I -liked- that their only 9th level spell was to call forth eternal darkness. But IMC wizards commonly prep spells they'll use (often with metamagic feats) and not spells they'll cast. I'm often amazed that published spell lists include lots of 6th level spells in sixth level spell slots... most wizards are probably going to prep lower level spells with more utility.
(not that this is anything more than my opinion but I was just thinking that I liked it anyway. Though D'T not developing something unpleasant seems a wee bit unlikely.)

But man, you put it to me hard to make me choose between Witch Hunters and Skaven...


Wulf

ahhh, but SL has Burok Torn.

Wulf

SL has ratmen, but not the whole horrific renaisance fantasy europe thing.

I would actually argue that SL =does= have a post-dark-ages-begining-of-the-enlightenment theme with the three library cites, etc. But its pretty debatable.

I think my game is pretty close to WHFP (mostly because one of my players only likes that kind of low fantasy) in tone. But I'm no WHFR expert and I'm sure its divergent in some way.
Its easy to get that sort of tone though.... just give them lots of magic items they wish they never got (they still won't frigging drawn from the modified Deck of many things so I'm thinking they're running scared at this point). Dump them in the middle of some hostile wilderness and have them fight just to get someplace they don't want to be (Hollowfaust) then stick them into the Banewarrens and you're kind of set for the gritty we-hate-being-heroes-but-nobody-else-will-do-it.

What about balance?

i -don't- btw think this is a light question. it definitely isn't. But I've been using R&R1 pretty extensively since I started my game last April and I really still couldn't say. it might be that the PCs are lower levels (still 8th & 7th) or that I don't give them much in the way of magic items but I couldn't say whether R&R is balanced or not....
Sethris' potency is a fine spell to give a PC.... but in two different fights it pumped the Banelar's poison DC to 23! (it sucked to be them...)

 

[Holy Bovine]

Well I resisted posting for as long as I could (yeah right - I've been working 14 of the last 15 days and this is the start of my 'mini' vaction - good thing my FLGS got the SL Campaign book in! ). I looked at the one magic item of mine that made the grade to R&R2 and was very pleased that they kept my wording almost word for word!! Better organized sentence structure on the details of the item (I will say it is a weapon) and the 'flavouring' I used they must have liked because it was all there!

I am so stoked about getting my copy - any idea when the contributers copies are getting shipped (although since I live in Canada I'm sure it will take a extra week or two)?

And Nightfall how come you didn't tell me about the upcoming 'Wilderness & Wastelands' ecounter book? You're slipping, man!! Chardun will NOT be happy

 

[Duncan Haldane]

And Nightfall how come you didn't tell me about the upcoming 'Wilderness & Wastelands' ecounter book? You're slipping, man!! Chardun will NOT be happy

It's been out for months

I think it came out at the same time as the campaign book.

Duncan

 

[Nightfall]

Grraf,

This is true. And you are right, that's the standard rule in the Psi Handbook. I just forgot about that. BUT what I was saying was this only works on Slacerians! Not Scarred Lands monsters in general. This means that while a Hrinnruk's hound will probably fall to a mindblast, a Slacerian Dragon might not.

Bov,

I knew about it, but let's just say I wasn't permitted to disseminate that information JUST yet. That being said, I think if the feats in R&R2 are an indication, the Sorcerer, Wizard, Bard Handbook from S&SS/Scarred Lands WILL be rather fun.
Like I said before, glad you got in there. Well it's a weapon, that leaves me five warscepters, a good number of swords and and some other things. Just give me another hint, slashing, piercing or bludgening weapon?

 

[Holy Bovine]

It's been out for months

I think it came out at the same time as the campaign book.

Duncan

WellthenI'lljustshutupokay


I really have to visit S&SS website more often (and convice my FLGS to actually get their stuff without me having to ask for it every time )

Nightfall - Bludgeoning

 

[Nightfall]

It's been out for months

I think it came out at the same time as the campaign book.

Duncan

Yeah but I think Bov is talking about the next one...Or if he's not, Hey I'm sorry! I thought I spread the word on THAT one rather well.

That being said, look for Serpent in the fold in a little under a week and half, two weeks. I know it's the 16th of Sept.

 

[Nightfall]

Okay I'm going out on a limb and say it's NOT a warscepter. But I think since you got some spells in, it might the Morningstar of the Black Thorns? Am I wrong?

 

[Holy Bovine]

Well I didn't get any spells in, just the magic weapon (not a warscepter and not the Black Thorns Morningstar).

Oh and I was talking about the first Wilderness and Wastelands - its advertised in the back of the SLCS book - I just forgot that this actually came out months ago and the W&W would have been out by now (*sigh* yet another SL book i need to buy )