XPH: Elan Balanced?
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Darklone
Registered User
Fair price? It may sound expensive.... but the possibility to nearly double your hitpoints is huge.Thanee said:You probably meant me with my statement about Vigor...
In 3.0 you could gain 18 temporary hit points with 1 PP, that's what I meant, the incredible cost-efficiency. Now you have to pay a fair price for those temporary hit points (5 temp-hp per PP).
The Souljourner
First Post
BTW, sorry about calling the guy insane... I just can't imagine anyone seriously thinking the elan is more powerful than an aasimar (or other +1 races).
As for the arguments... I totally agree with those that said the elan's power is very useful in rare circumstances, which is different than most races' abilities, which are somewhat useful in many circumstances.
I guess that's my problem with the "it's too powerful" defense. Yeah, it's good *once in a while*. How often would this really prevent you from dying? If it's more than a few times per campaign, you're either too reckless, or it's one of those meat grinder campaigns, in which case, stopping 50 points of damage will probably only keep you alive for one more round.
Thanks, but I'd rather have the feat and the extra skillpoint.
-The Souljourner
As for the arguments... I totally agree with those that said the elan's power is very useful in rare circumstances, which is different than most races' abilities, which are somewhat useful in many circumstances.
I guess that's my problem with the "it's too powerful" defense. Yeah, it's good *once in a while*. How often would this really prevent you from dying? If it's more than a few times per campaign, you're either too reckless, or it's one of those meat grinder campaigns, in which case, stopping 50 points of damage will probably only keep you alive for one more round.
Thanks, but I'd rather have the feat and the extra skillpoint.
-The Souljourner
Darklone
Registered User
Ah well. Psions are the best melee monsters, that's not new 
THAT WAS A JOKE!!!!
Ok. Something else: How often did players get killed, eaten or squashed to munchkin soup in one hit? I mean, how often will this elan ability save your players from death? I can't recall one PC casualty in the last 5 years where a player was killed by one lucky hit AND he would have been able with such an ability to avoid the death (criticals by greataxes that bring you to -68 hitpoints...).
So how often did this happen to you? My PCs usually die because they take too many hits in one round... there the elan ability would be nearly useless.
THAT WAS A JOKE!!!!
Ok. Something else: How often did players get killed, eaten or squashed to munchkin soup in one hit? I mean, how often will this elan ability save your players from death? I can't recall one PC casualty in the last 5 years where a player was killed by one lucky hit AND he would have been able with such an ability to avoid the death (criticals by greataxes that bring you to -68 hitpoints...).
So how often did this happen to you? My PCs usually die because they take too many hits in one round... there the elan ability would be nearly useless.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Darklone said:
I'd probably say that it was because the Elan Council demands almost all worldly goods as a requirement for conversion. Who wouldn't give up everything in order to live forever, especially if you have the opportunity and time to regain it? The elans could rake in millions of gold a year from carefully selecting people who were ripe for "transformation."
It would be somewhat less probable for the newly made elan to have given everything away, as part of the spiritual awakening involved. I think that's less likely because there are plenty of evil elans.
reiella
Explorer
Thanee said:
Because despite Transparency, Psicraft is a different skill than Spellcraft.
And of course, on page 55 in the Psionic-Magic transparency it still states that a Psicraft check is necessary to identify the discipline of the psionic aura detected by detect magic...
They simply aren't interchangable skills, even with transparency [as written].
two said:
Well, the immediate action bit was more so to state that it isn't as "readily useful" past 6th or so level [when critters may regularly start to get multiple attacks]. And erm, it's rather of meager usefulness against 'Vs Debilitating Saves", unless you metagame/share more information with the players than they 'should' know.
ANother possibility, would be to require that the Elan decide to use resilence and how much to soak before damage is determined, but after damage is known to occur. Ie, the Psychic Penalty
.The thing about dnd is that danger isn't about the constant drain on a party's resources, its about the critical moments.
I get hit loads of times, and they all take hp away, but I'm not sweating it till that there's the chance this hit will put me under.
Fireballs are nasty, but at higher levels will probably just weaken me. But that finger of death could end it here and now.
Sure, in general the elf's +2 dex will be better from avoiding attacks, and in the long run I will save much more damage. But what do I care, healing is cheap. As long as I live through the battle, I can use CLW wands or my buddy bandaid cleric. But its those moments where, crap this hit will kill me, where the elans ability becomes so incredibly powerful.
the big thing is that the +2 dex MIGHT prevent me from dying, the elan's ability WILL. The ability to consciously say, no I don't want this to happen, is so precious in dnd that it can not be underestimated.
I get hit loads of times, and they all take hp away, but I'm not sweating it till that there's the chance this hit will put me under.
Fireballs are nasty, but at higher levels will probably just weaken me. But that finger of death could end it here and now.
Sure, in general the elf's +2 dex will be better from avoiding attacks, and in the long run I will save much more damage. But what do I care, healing is cheap. As long as I live through the battle, I can use CLW wands or my buddy bandaid cleric. But its those moments where, crap this hit will kill me, where the elans ability becomes so incredibly powerful.
the big thing is that the +2 dex MIGHT prevent me from dying, the elan's ability WILL. The ability to consciously say, no I don't want this to happen, is so precious in dnd that it can not be underestimated.
