Wheel of Time Issues

[Florin]

I don't think that initiative adequitely represents the variables involved in such an encounter. For instance, since embracing is a full round action, then weaving can only take place at the beginning of the next round. If, however, years of practice have allowed a channeler to embrace as a move equivalent or free action, then they will have a definite advantage in combats involving the one power. In the case of the forsaken or other extremely powerful channelers (high level characters included) I think this is a realistic situation that initiative doesn't quite address.

I think allowing channelers to embrace with a move-equivilant or free action gets to be a bit much when they have access to weaves like Arms of Air. They could easily end a combat before it began if they won initiative. Besides, even in Star Wars, where you can choose to use Force Powers faster than usual with the right feats, they still charged you extra vp to do it.

Therefore, I think introducing something like the Quicken Spell feat would be a little more appropriate. Sure, you can fire that spell off right after you Embrace the Source, but it's going to cost you a slot 4 levels higher than normal. That would allow someone like a Forsaken, who should have plenty of high-level slots to burn, to act before someone else, even if they manage to win initiative.

Another idea would be to add a feat that would give you a bonus to your initiative if you are Embracing the Source, but that might be a mess to bookkeep. I'd rather stick with the Quicken Weave feat.

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

Therefore, I think introducing something like the Quicken Spell feat would be a little more appropriate. Sure, you can fire that spell off right after you Embrace the Source, but it's going to cost you a slot 4 levels higher than normal. That would allow someone like a Forsaken, who should have plenty of high-level slots to burn, to act before someone else, even if they manage to win initiative.

I see what you're getting at, but that would still only work if embracing the source wasn't a full round action.

Here's an idea... to make it difficult to gain the benefits of quickly embracing the source, make the ability a feat. By taking the feat, embracing the source becomes a standard (attack) action instead of a full round action. Channelers would be able to move then embrace, but would still not be able to channel during the same turn in which they embraced the source unless they had embraced through the use of a readied action. However, we could combine this with your 'quicken' weave feat, which would allow them to cast a weave much more quickly than normal. So, after having taken BOTH feats, they could embrace and channel in one round, but they've dedicated two feats to doing so.

Another idea for the quicken weave feat would be to make the weaves cast at a lower level than normal. Instead of forcing the caster to use up high level slots, they would simply have to suffer the consequences of weaving at say 2 levels lower than their standard power.

Whaddaya think? Is it a good compromise?

-Femerus