Firewrath's page

Another thread I didn't want to make. :P
I understand the ability as written and think it works rather well. Up to a point, but it seems some of the people I game with have issues with it.
Mainly one thinks it's a hassle, and prefers the default cone with either a single attack roll VS every creature in the cone, then a single damage roll, (Which personally would tick me off dealing 1 damage to everyone in a cone with a shotgun. -_-) or a cone effect with a reflex save for half.
For me there's also the issue of DMs using creatures with all the same AC, where I feel this wouldn't work very well either. (I also have issues with anything that has Evasion dodging gunfire if there was a 'reflex save for half' ...also the normally static reflex DC.)

The other person is ...hung up on the language.

Such as where it says 'When it attacks all creatures within a cone, it makes one attack per creature within in the cone,...' (Both have issue with this, just one more then the other.)
To them it feels like you're shooting more then once at each creature. I feel they're getting stuck on the 'When it attacks' as they stated that as 'making the initial attack roll'.

They both agree the language needs to be cleared up some, as they feel it's ambiguous at best.
I understand it just fine though: You're taking a single (iterative) attack action that triggers a cone effect which causes you to roll 'To Hit' each creature in the cone and deal damage accordingly.
That's awesome. Really, I mean it solves so many issues with the basic 'reflex for half cone attack' that most shotguns are done as.
But. It creates a whole new one, for me anyways.

With the Blunderbuss it actually works out rather well, at Best youre hitting six to seven medium sized creatures. Which is totally believable, even as far as saying the shot went through the first creature and hit the one behind it.
(No comment on if you miss the first creature and still hit the second. ;) Rather funny that, I think. ^-^)

Where I have an issue is the shotgun.

A '30-foot' cone?
That's 26 to 28 medium sized creatures. Granted a shotgun is a powerful Close range weapon, but I think that is pushing believability. Specially when you think about it like, 'you shoot through the first 10 guys in a line, missing them but hit 1 or 2 clear in the back'. What was funny just became rather ...weird, at best. (Yes. That is all dependent on if you ever get that many people in a cone (Unlikely but who knows.) And on how you roll the dice and assign targets. Things like 'first hit is first in line, while misses are in the back' work. I know. I just wanted to point out the potential silliness here.) Also, what if you roll and hit all 28? O_O

So I purpose a fix. Limit the number of creatures able to take damage from the effect to something like 10. (10 is pushing it for me so it seems like a nice maximum number.) Given a 30-foot cone is 6 squares long, it wont clear up some of the silliness like: 'Well the guys in front have high AC, but you did manage to hit the Wizard in the back past all 5 of his buddies.'
but I think it would work for most situations.

(I also feel the damage should be increased. I mean. 1d8? Really? and only a x2 critical multiplier? But. That's not the purpose of this thread so I wont get into that. Or talk about "Shotguns shouldn't be cones." (I disagree. They should be. :P))

(First, I lost my first version of this post due to my own stupidity while digging up a link I forgot, Though I partly blame Firefox for throwing a dropdown menu that I didnt want in my way. -_- So forgive me if this seems short as I was on a time limit when I started about 15 minutes ago. Please also forgive my spelling for much the same reason.)

So I seriously, extremely, Really, did not want to make this thread. Mostly because of how such ...discussions go, and I might not be able to reliably reply in any sort of timely fashion.

So first off, the 'Interesting Historical Facts':
An interesting find I made while doing research for my own firearm system, is that there were revolvers and breach-loaders back in the 1400-1500s. During the time that flintlocks were used. (Seriously, pretty much bolt-action flint locks. Huh. The things you learn.)
I have never seen such info on Wikipedia, at least when I looked into such things. But I was in Walmarts and found a documentary series called 'Amazing War Machines'. It has two episodes that I was interested in. Early firearms and handguns ('Flint and Steel) and rifles ('Rifles and machineguns').
http://www.walmart.com/ip/13917837

I was also surprised at the lack of firearms in the playtest of a class that is built around using them. (imo; Thats like saying 'Playtest a Wizard, but you can only use spells up to second level.')
So on that note, here are some links from around the net that offer firearms (all open and legal for posting):
Iron Kingdoms:
http://www.whitedragon.dk/Download/Iron_Kingdoms/privateer_firearms.pdf
(It seems the original link from the Privateers Press site is gone. So I found the pdf hosted elsewhere instead.)
Ptolus:
http://www.ptolus.com/images/Technology.pdf
And lastly firearms from Pathfinder:
http://www.archivesofnethys.com/gearWeapons.htm
(You have to scroll down a little for that one.)

And now, my time is up by 20 minutes so I must go. I hope the information here is useful to some people in the playtest and that the Devs might consider the new (to me anyways) information on flintlocks in the documentary for their firearm weapons.

Misc. Info:
Well I finally got to try Word of Power Saturday night, I made a new soon-to-be-NPC / PC for the game, he started as a 4th lvl Sorcerer.
I randomly picked the Elemental (Fire) bloodline for him, I dont see it coming up ingame though, for one, im purposely ignoring the bonus spells in favor of the WoP system,

Which unfortunately on that front, I dont have much to report,
I got to cast two spells the whole bit of combat we did,
The words the character has access to are:

Level 1 Words:

Simple Order (Command)
Force Shield (Armor)
Wrack (Pain)

Level 2 words:

Frost Fingers (Cold)

(No, I didnt have time to pick lvl 0 words,)

The only important stat here is his Cha 19,
(started at 16, +2 from being Human and +1 from 4th lvl)

Combat:
We fought three Gray Oozes, which being immune to fire/cold ruled out all of my damage,
I got off Force Shield on my first turn, then a Mass Wrack on my second,
It seems odd to give Oozes the 'Sickened' condition, but I dont see anything preventing that, it helped abit too, the -2 to attacks had them missing our mostly caster party, (a bard, a witch, me (sorc), and a 4th player who just made a new char, so I dont know his class yet,)

Assessment:
So from premaking quick spells before the game, and spending a week reading over the Word of Power system, I have a few opinions on it,

For one, I dont see much of a reason to take Anything other then the Mass target word when im allowed,
its cheaper and over all more effective then the burst/cone/line words,
a scaling point cost for Mass might help with this,
say its point cost is equal to the spell level its being applied to,
(2 points for a 2nd lvl spell, 4 points for a 4th lvl spell, 7 points for a 7th lvl spell)
that Might help,
you might also Max the number of targets at 10,
OR max it at 1/2 caster level then add a Boost to max the number of targets at equal to caster level.

And while I Really like the system, I think a few tweaks might be helpful,
for instance, all the elemental words seem unnecessary, and while I like the secondary effects, those could probably be moved into a single 'Fire' - 'Cold' /etc section with a Boost cost to pick which one you want to apply,

Speaking of Boost,
I see no reason why a Word cant or shouldnt have multiple Boost effects,
it just seems like its unnecessary limiting the system by Not doing so,
I'm not saying ALL words should have Boost or more then one Boost effect, but surely there are a few that would benefit from it,

I also feel word/spell construction should go more like this:
Target Word
Effect word (works as normal unless it does damage)
IF it does damage, pick the elemental type,
then pick how much damage it does:
max 5d4, 5d6, 10d6, 20d6, each with their own point cost,
then add other effects after this, like the Boost for conditions after the damage,
but otherwise spell construction should work normally.

You also Might want to consider doubling the points per spell level And the point cost of the effect words,
imo, this would make balancing easier,

as it is, +/- 1 point in cost for a 1st level spell is alot because the maximum number of points is 5, but if it was upped to say 10, then a +/-1 point change isnt that harsh while still being effective as a balancing tool,
...just wanted to throw that out there, :P
(And yes, I know how increased cost and minor tweaking would be a pain, I think its mostly my semi-programmer side talking, :P)

*Sigh*
and here I was trying to make this short, -_-
Well, I hope it was helpful at least.

Well, i dont like bumping my own threads, -_-
but now that everyone has had some time to read over the WoP system pretty thoroughly and play with it, either in spell construction or in game,
im curious if anyone else had any ideas for Effects words, or a comment on mine above,