Upper Krust, where are you? [Immortal's Handbook]

[Xeriar]

Originally posted by Anubis

Improved Efficient Item Creation [Epic]
Select an item creation feat. You can create magic items using that feat even more quickly then before.
Prerequisites: Item creation feat to be selected, Efficient Item Creation for the item creation feat to be selected, Knowledge (arcana) 44 ranks, Spellcraft 44 ranks
Benefit: Select an item creation feat. Creating a magic item using that feat requires one day per 100,000 gp of the item's market price, with a minimum of one day. All items created using this feat cost an additional 10,000 XP.
Normal: Without this feat, creating a magic item requires one day for each 1,000 gp of the item's market price.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a different item creation feat.

Ugh, 10,000 XP is a terrible chunk even at 41st level, and it requires knowledge: Arcana which is not a class skill for druids, psions, rangers or paladins (the last two are actually important...)

Regardless, this gets house ruled a lot anyway.

 

[Anubis]

For feats, aside from the general comment that there already are enough/too many, all you offer is your toughness feats, really. The rest is for your Dragonball stuff, really (well even the toughness ones are).

How do you arrive at that conclusion? There are a *total* of (I think) SEVEN feats that pertain to Dragonball material. (Control Oozaru Form, Tail Weakness Immunity, 2nd-Grade Super Saiyan, Ultra Super Saiyan, Full-Power Super Saiyan, Saiyan's Toughness, Epic Saiyan's Toughness) ALL the rest are usable in ANY campaign, especially now with my recent errata. Trust me.

My campaign has no epic stuff OR Saiyans yet (Level 3 thus far in the new game), but the party's rogue is having plenty of fun with Energy Manipulation. Not too powerful, but it HAS saved the party from death on a couple of occasions. The Ki feats are awesome and perfectly suitable to ANY campaign.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Bonjour mon ami!

1st edition? That's cheating, I wasn't even born when it existed!

It still exists today in fact!

didn't the DM needed to change the MR of his monster based on the level of the mage during play?

1st Ed. Magic Resistance exactly parallels 3rd Ed. Spell Resistance. Just the terminology is different.

that's might be a 5% variation, but given that it was the DM that rolled MR, he was able to magically transform a faillure into a success.

I don't understand the above statement.

Just that it's easier to remove rules than to add new ones, and that some players (and DMs, that's the missing part of my last post ), might remove from the games effect that impede spellcastig leaving only SR and saves, thus those will have much more importance.

Some DMs might have extensive rules on mage duel that use SR and caster level, and might want to use them with immortals.

and so on...

If individual DMs want to incorporate house rules then thats entirely up to them.

I may still include the SR modifications as an optional rule, but I personally don't see it as a necessity and it causes as many problems as it solves anyway.

you don't have 2€ banknote in E.U., only coins, and metals is more nutritious than paper (and some nice people agree to trade those piece of metal with rice & spaghetti).

That's why people in the euro zone are more healthy

Bon appetit!

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Anubis mate!

...during which you are unconscious. This merely gives your party more time to save you from dying,

Couple that with the Fast Healing Feat and its

so as to reduce death in the game, which ALWAYS slows down play and makes things less fun anyway!

There always has to be the tangible threat of death.

Using those feats, I suggest NOT making it optional.

Obviously, since its an intrinsic part of your feat chain.

Believe it or not, very few actually do. I've had this for a while now, and NO ONE has yet to take all of these feats. For one, very few people play straight fighters. For two, any class other than a straight fighter will be giving up ALL of his or her feats to get these, meaning no Weapon Focus, no Improved Critical, no Whirlwind Attack, and most likely no access to Prestige Classes.

If no ones going to take the feats in the first place why make them like that.

You can't argue "Well they might be broken if you take them - but no one ever takes them".

I'll give ya' this one. Admittedly, the increases could go down SLIGHTLY as these were a bit of overcompensation . . . Either that, or stiffen the prerequisites . . .

Forget about stiffening the prerequisites.

Toughness (et al) is designed to be a fairly generic chain of feats.

It's not that the feats are broken, it's that they're USELESS. I like ALL feats to have some kinda meaning. That's why I made Endurance a prerequisite for the Ki feats, to give Endurance meaning. Some of these feats do NOTHING. Who in their right mind would take the current Dragon's Toughness, considering the inane prerequisites and only +12 hit points, which any CR 10+ monster could sneeze at and make disappear? (The minimum level needed to take it is Level 18 unless you do some insane multi-classing!)

I think you are overestimating the power of feats in general to be quite honest!

Like I said, MAYBE they could be decreased a little, but fact is, they still need to be increased to be at all useful. Perhaps +5, +10, +15, +20, +25, +25, with all the current death's door extensions? That would add up to +100 hit points and a death's door of maybe -180 for a powerful character with a good Constitution . . . Or maybe the prerequisites should increase.

Forget about toughening the prerequisites.

All I know is that players are seeing something wrong with these feats that I'm not seeing, because most of them still find them to be a waste.

The upper end of the chain is too powerful.

I think the real problem perhaps might be that these feats are too hard to get at low levels when they'd be most useful, and the combat feats are MUCH more useful. Everyone will EVENTUALLY get these feats, just not until very high levels. By Level 60, you don't even notice the increase, honestly. All of them together is one more hit you can take from an Epic monster, and that's about it.

Feats are not balanced with regards the potential damage monsters COULD inflict. They are balanced with regards other feats.

The only thing I can think of that is turning you all off is that I run EPIC games, not meaning Level 20+, but meaning games where the world is about to be destroyed and the PCs are the legendary heroes that can stop the evil from destroying everything.

Then such characters will have potentially hundreds of levels, vis a vis, hundreds of feats! Thats not an excuse to make individual feats unbalanced.

Not only do I not like PCs dying (I try to avoid it at all costs even!), but I like PCs to be able to fight in a lot of battles. Perhaps that is the problem?

No. The problem is they are not even remotely balanced with regards other feats.

Maybe I'm doing the same thing you've done in the past by customizing rules to fit my own campaign . . .

I think you mean that some people have incorrectly accused me of doing; whereas in your case you are openly admitting it.

Very well, I can release a new set that works even in less powerful campaigns. Perhaps then you'll see that although you're the genius of the deities, I'm the genius of the feats!

The power of the feat is irrelevant with regards the power of individual campaigns.

A feat is a feat is a feat after all.

WHAT?! You're nuts . . . Even the Level 30 NPC Fighter already has 275,

...even under your auspices you are handing out +255 hp. My remarks were "You're practically doubling hit points".

Since you have just agreed with me, does that mean you're nuts too!?

and PCs at Level 40 should have MUCH higher. By Level 40, they'll probably have AT LEAST 500. By Level 60, the hit points will be nearing 1,000 EASY!

...and such characters will have more feats.

Um, but IT DOES WORK.

No it does'nt.

A 5th-level character will destroy x4 1st-level characters.

A 20th-level character will be destroyed by a party of 16th-level characters.*

*Note this is something to which you totally agreed about a month ago.

Until Level 20. After that is when it breaks down. Trust me, I've played this game quite a bit in the last three years, and we've NEVER had a problem at Levels 1-20. That's proof right there that the system works at lower levels.

Just because the problem is less pronounced at lower levels doesn't mean it doesn't exist!

Willful ignorance of a problem does not make it go away.

As I always say, if it ain't broken, don't fix it! Concentrate on what IS broken, Levels 21+.

It was broken. I have fixed it!

 

[Blacksad]

Bonjour mon ami!

I don't understand the above statement.

Hello U_K!

That it was easier for the DM to change the result of a roll, considering that in 1st edition, it was the DM who made the MR roll. So the need to alter the rule was less apparent in the DM's eyes.

Or perhaps I've missed something, but as far as I'm concerned, my 1st and 2nd edition books list a MR % for each monster, and you used a rule that reduced the monster MR based on the level of the caster?

If individual DMs want to incorporate house rules then thats entirely up to them.

Or exclude normal rules, that a lot more easier, I can ignore the shaman in OA, but if the katana was missing, it would require more effort to include it.

I may still include the SR modifications as an optional rule, but I personally don't see it as a necessity and it causes as many problems as it solves anyway.

That's 2 changes that don't cause any problem past those two changes, and it solve an existing problem. You confuse me.

I can understand that you don't see it as a necessity, because in your experience SR is less and less important at high level.

But claiming that the changes cause problem??? which problems?

and it solves a problem!

So why not including it, people will stumble upon the problem, when a DM design a monster with SR, or when player facing monster of their challenge will see a kind of cycle, with SR being easier and easier when they rise in level, until they rise in CR when it becomes sudendly harder.

 

[-Eä-]

Greetings people!

I thought I'd just pop in...to say hello, at least. By the way, may I have your e-mail adress, UK? I've just reformatted my hard-drive, losing my address book and such, and I really need to create it anew.



Well, as Einstein said:
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.

ECL 1-5 = +2 CR
ECL 6-10 = +1 CR
ECL 11-20 = +1/2 CR
ECL 21-40 = +1/4 CR
ECL 41-80 = +1/8 CR
etc.

eg.
ECL 3 = CR 6
ECL 9 = CR 14
ECL 15 = CR 18
ECL 30 = CR 22
ECL 67 = CR 28

1. To gauge a battle where a party of four PCs will win using (approx.) 25% of their resources - USE ECL.

eg.
Party of x4 15th-level characters VS. an ECL 15 opponent.

2. An effective challenge ranges from CR-8 to CR+8.

eg.
So the effective range for x4 15th-level characters is CR10-26. That means ECL 5 (CR-8) to ECL 55 (CR+8)

CR+/-0 = Party victory using 25% of their resources.
CR+4 = 50/50 chance of victory.
CR+8 = Opponent victory using 25% of their resources.

Your theory is crazy, it's crazy enough to be true (-:

Actually, I agree! This is more close to the modified system I'm currently using. It's too bad that my algorithm on transcendental CRs failed. Well...I'll have to devise a new one then. Fortunatelly I have learned not to bore you with my explorations (mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper) (-;

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

Anubis.

Endurance is far from a useless feat. For one, it is a prerequisite for the Remain Conscious feat. In case you didn't know, Remain Conscious allows characters to make a single partial action every round between -1 and -10 (the death's door period). If your dragonball-esque Hit Point feats allow characters to broaden the range of their death's door period, then those feats become hugely overpowered in combination with Remain Conscious.

For someone who claims to be the "genius of feats" you should have known that. This self-adoration streak of yours isn't flattering or pretty.

Moreover, I wholeheartedly throw my hat into the "death-is-an-integral-part-of-suspense" circle. If "any" of your players knows you at all (or reads this thread for that matter), then they already realize that you will never truly kill them. I can't speak for any of your players, but rolling combat dice without fearing the consequences of my actions or the "permanence of death" equates to horrifically dull, masturbatory role-playing. Sorry if that sounds crass, but you seem to appreciate honesty on occasion. Perhaps this will be one of those times.



If a dungeon master is artificially keeping player characters alive, just so the entire breadth of their "lovingly-crafted" adventure can play out, then they are being egotistically self-serving. Sometimes an adventure is cut short by character death, and sometimes the characters never return to the adventure. That's just the way it goes. Maintaining suspense is more important than enacting the machinations of dungeon master creativity.

Dungeon masters should be storytellers first, and handmaidens never.

 

[Gez]

For someone who claims to be the "genius of feats" you should have known that. This self-adoration streak of yours isn't flattering or pretty.

I thought this was a note of humor from his part, rather than a serious egotistical crisis.

And he needed to heal his ego a bit, after Craig told him he was extremely dim-witted, and his sillyness amazes even the gods.

(Paraphrased from Improved Epic Toughness, for those who don't get jokes .)

 

[-Eä-]

Greetings!!!

I thought I could stop posting such inane posts about how to calculate things and such, but I could not... Well, that's me. At least all people will have access to the formula from which all XP can be derived.

I think the latter algorithm is better, but it comes not in one formula.


Base=300*l*(3/2)^(floor((cr+1)/2))*(4/3)^(floor(cr/2))

where floor is the floor function. ie. floor(4.9)=4, floor(34.1)=34

PCR=(1/12*cos(Pi*cr+Pi)+17/12)^(cr-floor(cr))


XP formula one:
XP=Base*PCR


XP algorithm two:
xp2:=proc(l,cr)
> if (type(floor(cr),even)=true)
> then Base(l,cr)*(cr/2-floor(cr)/2+1)
> else Base(l,cr)*((cr)/3-floor(cr)/3+1)
> end if
> end proc;

This is a Maple procedure, so if you have that programme, just define Base and copy the algorithm. I never thought it was so easy... But that's what happens when one delves in some mysterious sequence formulae involcving infinite series.




By the way, I think that upper limitation of CR+8 is lame! One always has a chance of defeating a CR, even if it is incredibly slim. Even a 1st level group will have a chance of defeating a Great Red Wyrm, it's only so small that it only happens once per 100 billion years or something.

 

[poilbrun]

By the way, I think that upper limitation of CR+8 is lame! One always has a chance of defeating a CR, even if it is incredibly slim. Even a 1st level group will have a chance of defeating a Great Red Wyrm, it's only so small that it only happens once per 100 billion years or something.

But it would usually be the result of luck rather than anything else. For example, if you use the optional rule "Instant Kill" (DMG p64), three successive rolls of 20 on an attack kills instantly the creature. But if that would happen, I would most certainly not give the PC the XP the table says they should have for killing a creature with a CR as high as a great wyrm; I don't even know if I'd give them the XP for defeating a monster of CR=avg level +8.

Oh, and BTW, even though you probably know it, I'll tell you that I didn't understand everything in your mathematical formula. But you should be getting used to that!