green slime
First Post
Except every armour is not immune to disintegrate, nor a targetted dispel magic, nor mordenkainen's disjunction, nor other methods of dealing damage to the wearer...
Swift Hunter vs Fortification
- Thread starter Shin Okada
- Start date
Except every armour is not immune to disintegrate, nor a targetted dispel magic, nor mordenkainen's disjunction, nor other methods of dealing damage to the wearer...
StreamOfTheSky
Adventurer
They already have that. +1 spell level metamagic feat in Sandstorm. Penetrates even immunity, unless the creature is actually of the fire subtype, iirc.
For me, the outrage is that such "you lose" means are so cheaply available. Whether it's fortification armor to screw the rogue, or a level 6 all day spell (Energy Immunity) to become immune to fire and screw a fire mage. Maybe countering with yet another absolute ability isn't the best answer, but it's better than leaving this crap unchecked.
I added magic weapon abilities in my games to reduce/eliminate fortification protection from SA. +1 market price for up to 50% reduction (ie, medium fortification would only stop SA 25% of the time); +3 for full negation. Weapon modifiers costs double what armor ones do, and this is a much more limited in scope benefit than crit and SA protection all the time, so it might even be "over priced."
Nice. The rogue has to have tens of thousands of gp in loot destroyed before he can use his major class ability. Real nice. I guess dispel magic would work...if the CL check succeeds, to give the rogue a narrow 1d4 round window. Totally worth the round spent casting it. Not even going to touch on disintegrate, it'd be sad if you had to pay that much to use SA, and it's arguable if the fact the disintegrate ignores gear would mean the SA damage would as well, anyway.
green slime
First Post
Except DND is and has always meant to be a team effort, not just something for a single rogue to handle alone. Therefore the suggestions for other solutions involving spellcasting.
My suggestion would be, to those playing in those Hi-stake games where fortification becomes a neccessity to survive (Seriously, suffering 12d6 damage for multiple attacks in a single round will cramp most Fighter's style), is to create an armour which instead reduces the amount of the critical damage inflicted.
SO rather than completely negating an ability, reducing the damage itself to an "acceptable" level (say reducing damage from a crit or sneak attack by 25% - 50% - 75%). Leaving the Max at 75% reduction means that the Epic Rogue sneak attack ability is still not a complete waste of time. The trick comes in making its cost match the benefit.
Just a suggestion...
that way you get to not create a whole slewth of epic weapons that penetrate fortification. Or you can retain them, to penetrate 5% per "+1", for instance.
The real problem is that the Heavy Fortification ability is far too cheap. IMO, even the moderate Fortification ability is too cheap.
Make Heavy Fortification a +10 Enhancement equivalent, and you'll see its use drop in the early Epic level, I suspect.
My suggestion would be, to those playing in those Hi-stake games where fortification becomes a neccessity to survive (Seriously, suffering 12d6 damage for multiple attacks in a single round will cramp most Fighter's style), is to create an armour which instead reduces the amount of the critical damage inflicted.
SO rather than completely negating an ability, reducing the damage itself to an "acceptable" level (say reducing damage from a crit or sneak attack by 25% - 50% - 75%). Leaving the Max at 75% reduction means that the Epic Rogue sneak attack ability is still not a complete waste of time. The trick comes in making its cost match the benefit.
Just a suggestion...
that way you get to not create a whole slewth of epic weapons that penetrate fortification. Or you can retain them, to penetrate 5% per "+1", for instance.
The real problem is that the Heavy Fortification ability is far too cheap. IMO, even the moderate Fortification ability is too cheap.
Make Heavy Fortification a +10 Enhancement equivalent, and you'll see its use drop in the early Epic level, I suspect.
