Author Topic: EOI: The Last Great Character Optimisation Project.  (Read 16739 times)

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Bauglir

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Re: EOI: The Last Great Character Optimisation Project.
« Reply #100 on: September 06, 2009, 07:15:18 PM »
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Perhaps I should have been clearer with my Magic of Incarnum statement. The process you're describing sounds very much like a soulmeld/chakra binding except replace soul power ("Woo!" in my best James Brown impersonation) with untyped magic/spiritual power, as appropriate to campaign setting. A pool of, let us call them spirit points, related to character level and charisma would be used to power up each day as suggested, however, instead of keeping the system reliant on old magic item costs, one could assign a value to the item's level rating introduced in the Magic Item Compendium; or even just have the cost be one to one.  One would then have more manageable logistics where the highest cost you pay is 20 (in a non-Epic game). I would suggest paring items into their base (i.e. Headware of Intellect, Back covering item of Resistance, etc.) and then have the investiture of spirit points determine bonus. One's character level would determine the maximum allowable investiture in a single item.

Ok, yeah. Although I'd prefer it if characters COULDN'T change their equipment on a daily basis. At least, there'd have to be some limitation on what you can do. Otherwise you end up with characters resting for a day to rearrange their equipment to suit whatever scenario comes up. It's the same thing that make prepared casters better than spontaneous; the ability to change the fundamental basis of what your character can do at any time. Actually, having thought about it, that ritual I mentioned probably should have a gp cost or something else that means the limiting factor isn't time.

However, I like having higher numbers because it means you can price things more effectively. The scale has far more gradation, so you can account for slight variance in effects. It raises the logistics, but building a 20th level character from scratch is always going to take a lot of work no matter what you do, and I think it's ok to raise the logistics of away-from-the-table mechanics such as item pricing if it improves balance. Of course, all existing magic items and effects need to be repriced (I think this is inevitable no matter what we do). That said, the scale could use some condensing, but 1-20 isn't nearly finely graded enough. Dropping the last two zeros off all entries in the table would be feasible, for instance. But honestly, charging 1 point for a potion of Cure Light on a scale where a +10 sword costs 20 is ridiculous.

Also, in a sense, I agree that maximum effect should be capped by level. It's unbalancing if someone dumps all their gold into a single item (both ways, mind you; they're too good at one thing and too sucky at everything else), so how about no more than 1/4 of the total spirit points on a single item?

I disagree with pairing certain items with certain effects, actually. If a given Sorcerer doesn't want to be wearing a cloak, why force them? The body slot requirements, as I see them, are there to keep people from having absurd numbers of magic items; putting a cap on max items, period, eliminates this, so we'd be free to let characters make their flavor better represented by mechanics.
So you end up stuck in an endless loop, unable to act, forever.

In retrospect, much like Keanu Reeves.

juton

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Re: EOI: The Last Great Character Optimisation Project.
« Reply #101 on: September 26, 2009, 12:04:17 PM »
Here's a list of spells I think need to be house ruled to give mundanes a fighting chance.

Individual spell changes:
Celerity, Greater Celerity: Cannot be used to cast spells
Charm (Person, Monster, etcetera) spells give a 10+CL bonus on diplomacy checks with the affected creature.
Contact other Plane: You may ask only one question per week
Contingency: Contingency only works if the trigger condition involves the character or object attended and all trigger conditions must involves a state or effect on the attended entity, not one about to effect the entity. What that means is 'If I'm hit for damage then X' is valid while 'If I'm about to be hit for damage then X' is invalid. Only one contingent spell may activate in a round, if an action causes more than one contingency to activate the one cast is chosen at random.
Communion: This allows your god to tell you a message, by the time it gets to the prime material plane it may only be comprehensible as a riddle, or an obtuse quatrain.
Dimension Door only works if you have line of effect to the destination, or to a range of 50 feet
Freedom of Movement gives +20 to escape artist checks and to resist grapples.
Force Cage takes one round to cast
Genesis does not let you vary the flow of time on your demi-plane.
Glibness allows a will save.
Invisibility, Improved Invisibility and Superiour Invisibility take one round to cast
Iron Guard only works on Iron, not any other material.
Knock lets you use disable device at a distance, add your caster level to you disable device check
Mind Blank gives a +10 bonus to resist divinations
Moment of Prescience does not give a bonus on initiative checks
Scry and Greater Scry: You may see and hear at a distance as per Clairvoyance/Clairaudience, you may rotate  the sensor in any direction and can move it at a rate of 60 feet a round. You may jump it to another destination once per minute. It does not work across planes and does not automatically find people, you have to specify a location your are familiar with. Scry's range is 1 mile per CL, Greater Scry's range is 100 miles per CL
Silence takes one round to cast
Solid Fog Only halves a creature's movement.
Teleport Can only take you to a previously created portal or mark
True Seeing has no material component and only gives a will save vs. illusions
Wraith Strike takes a standard action to cast, it lasts until the end of your next round
Wall of (Stone, Iron, Force) come into effect over the course of one round, characters can circumvent these by a reflex check. A character may attempt to attack or perform a strength check against one object as a free action once a round.

Miscellaneous
All spells that inflict a status effect must allow a save. If a character beats a save by 5 or more, or gets a natural 20 they suffer no effect from the spell what-so-ever.

Meta magic:
Divine meta magic and other sources of free meta magic do not allow you to cast spells of a higher effective level than you could normally cast. For instance a 3rd level Cleric could not maximize an inflict lesser wounds spell with divine meta-magic.

Negative Energy
A character will never have more than half their level in negative levels. A negative level applies a -1 penalty to every d20 roll. Negative levels from enervation go away after 1 hour, all negative levels are lost with 8 hours of sleep.

Anklebite

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Re: EOI: The Last Great Character Optimisation Project.
« Reply #102 on: September 26, 2009, 02:11:20 PM »
huh, with those changed wraiths are pussies.
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Cephid Arcanis

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Re: EOI: The Last Great Character Optimisation Project.
« Reply #103 on: November 07, 2009, 11:44:02 AM »
I don't know how old this tread is, but it is great.

Here's a list of spells I think need to be house ruled to give mundanes a fighting chance.

Individual spell changes

The 3.5 system really is very good.
I think that nearly all ballance issuse could be fixed with ToB as base classes + some extra feats to pull off feat chains earlier.

Limit the most powerful spells like the suggestions by juton. 
I love the fact he has focused on removing the overlap between party roles.
Like limiting knock and freedom of movement only giving a boost.
The Contingency one is great, but you should only have one at a time.

And there should really be a melee PrC with abilities liike 'dispelling strike, mage slayer, pierce concealment and eventually short duration Anti Magic Field.

If we build in some more manuverability and resiliance into non-casters in the late game, then they really would be a threat to casters.

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Keldar

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Re: EOI: The Last Great Character Optimisation Project.
« Reply #104 on: November 07, 2009, 02:29:15 PM »
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Charm (Person, Monster, etcetera) spells give a 10+CL bonus on diplomacy checks with the affected creature.
That change would make Charm (various) more powerful, allowing people to get their diplomonster on early, and make turning creatures Fanatic that much easier.  Simply changing your line of thought about Charm is enough, it makes the target Friendly to the Caster, and little else.  Dropping the additional line about opposed charisma checks would do more to rein in Charm than changing it to a Diplomacy cbonus could, it would only make them friendly and never, ever, stupid or fanatic then.  Eliminating the potential abuse that arises from the loose opposed roll rules and allowing DM common sense to rule instead.