Spidermonkeya's page

Root Epithets are really strong in my opinion. They provide a pretty nice effect for just using your Body Ikon's transcend. Brave, Mournful, and Radiant are all nice perks.

To me, this kills the utility of Worn Ikons because it significantly tilts the strength toward Body Ikons as a "secondary Ikon" after the Weapon Ikon.

I think the player should be able to choose whether the Root Epithet enhances the Body or the Worn Ikon when the feature is selected (or maybe just both).

Thoughts?

My question is, from a design perspective, are the three types of Ikons (Weapon, Body, Worn) supposed to each have a mechanical niche? It seems like the Weapon Ikon powers are meant to encourage and enable one to attack. The Body Ikon powers tend to revolve around Tanking/Defense/Healing. The Worn Ikon powers tend to be more about supporting the group and mobility.

Though this seems to be the niche, there are some specific Ikons/powers that exist outside these niches. Currently someone can use the Barrow's Edge, Scar of the Survivor and Palisade Bangles to triple-down on tanking abilities. Is this intended?

You cannot use two Ikons simultaneously, so it seems like they should cover different situations, such as one mainly for attacking, another for when you need to focus on defense, or supporting your party. However, the design also makes it so you cannot just use one Ikon all the time -- which would force you to switch between "roles" each turn. With the current slate of Ikons, you could "double down" on tanking by picking Barrow's Edge and Scar of the Survivor, so you have a healing power available to you every turn.

I would prefer the Ikon types to have a niche, but I am also okay if there are a small number of Ikons/feats/epithets that break the niche if someone wants to double down their character.

My concern is that if the Ikon Types do not have a clear niche, it can become confusing on what you should be using your Ikons for. As an example, the Victor's Wreath gives the user +1 to attack -- should I be attacking with this or use my Weapon Ikon?

What do you all think?

Thesis: Abilities that do not guarantee you will be able to use your transcend are problematic.

Examples: Barrow's Edge's "Drink of my Foes", Noble Branch's "Strike, Breathe, Rend", "Reap the Field". These are conditional on if something else occurs during your turn. In each of these cases, that trigger is a successful strike, though you could imagine the designers' could add other abilities with other triggers, such as you successfully demoralize, etc.

1. One can only use a transcend ability once per turn. As such, transcend is a limited resource. Transcend abilities are strong for their action economy. Therefore, not using transcend in a turn is essentially wasting a strong resource.

2. Putting the divine spark where you might need it next turn seems to be an important part of playing an Exemplar. Abilities where you gamble on being able to move the spark seem counter to this playstyle.

For these reasons, I think the above abilities are problematic in design (the mechanics of Strike, Breathe, Rend and Reap the Field are also weak). One is not sure if they will actually successfully trigger the Transcend in a given turn. So, one might not be able to spend this limited resource in a given turn. One could always choose to just move the spark as an action if the trigger fails, and that somewhat solves the issue with having the spark in the "wrong place" on the next turn, but that's pretty bad action economy in my opinion.

Solution:
1. Redesign these abilities.

2. Particularly for Weapon Ikons, add some feats with 1 action Transcend. that do not require a trigger -- or maybe trigger if a strike fails?

3. I think we need some feats that improve action economy for moving the spark. I think it is going to feel bad if your divine spark is not where you want it in a turn. The Root Epithet's sort of already do this, but it does cost you use the Transcend ability. Kineticist's get the Elemental Blast as part of activating their aura, there could be something similar here.

Thoughts?

This transcend ability is a bit confusing. I am not sure how the designer's intended it to work. I think there are a few possible interpretations:

1. The new spirit damage bonus applies to all weapon damage dice including the new dice added at levels 1, 10, and 18.
For example:
At level 1, the extra spirit damage would be 4 x 2 weapon dice (added power attack die and the bonus went up from 2 to 4)
At level 4, the extra spirit damage would be 4 x 3 weapon dice (striking rune)
At level 10, the extra spirit damage would be 6 x 4 weapon dice (another die from the power attack and the damage went from 4 to 6)

2. The new spirit damage bonus only applies to the original weapon damage dice (i.e. from striking runes)
At level 1, the extra spirit damage would be 4 x 1 weapon dice
At level 4, the extra spirit damage would be 4 x 2 weapon dice (striking rune)
At level 10, the extra spirit damage would be 6 x 2 weapon dice (the damage went from 4 to 6)

3. The spirit damage bonus going from 2 to 4 to 6, etc. was meant to account for the additional weapon die added by the power attack
At level 1, the extra spirit damage would be 2 x 2 weapon dice (added power attack die)
At level 4, the extra spirit damage would be 2 x 3 weapon dice (striking rune)
At level 10, the extra spirit damage would be 2 x 4 weapon dice (another die from the power attack)

I think 1 or 3 are the more likely intents. What do people think?