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@Unicore: I sort of agree with you that worldbuilding is an issue here. But it has to come from two sides.
Most of the heist scenes I've seen in APs and scenarios have used level-appropriate DCs for obstacles. In theory it's the sort of thing where actually simple DCs should be used a lot. While the casino or whatnot might have an elite security chief, that doesn't mean everyone who works there should be a level 10 card dealer or something. If the players were to brute-force the situation they'd be up against level-based DCs of their main opponents. But the point of a heist is to circumvent all that and find gaps in the defenses where the barriers aren't elite strength.
Think of a typical James Bond movie; he's knocking out a lot of guards that don't really stand much of a chance. Makes it look easy, most of the time, because he's rolling against DCs that make sense for the situation, while Bond is actually overpowered for the situation. It's only coming into contact with main opponents that he really has to exert himself and roll level-appropriate DCs.
If adventures were like that, items with static DCs might keep making sense a lot longer. But I don't really see adventures like that a lot.
yup my rogue never actually gets better at picking locks because all locks wherever I go are level appropriate for some reason, like I get the idea of having different numbers feel like they in different tiers of power, but in my experience that doesn't actually happen and you are just on a treadmill
@briethauptclan,
At least PF2 is consistent with this? There are spells and feats that are really only good at a specific level, and for a specific amount of time before becoming obsolete as well. It is not just items. I know all of those drive some players up the wall, but it is a general game design feature (flaw?) of the proficiency system and the quickly escalating DCs and damage dice.
@Ascalaphus,
I mostly agree with you as well. I think it is pretty easy as a GM to add that stuff back in though, even to APs. Probably easier than it is for GMs who want to just cut all the scenes that show Bond dealing with trivial encounters.
I'm thinking you are missing the forest by focusing on this one particular tree.
The Misdirecting Haversack is one concrete example of a type of item. One that has no upgrade options, and has a fixed DC that becomes irrelevant after a few levels.
After those levels, there is no point in having the item any more. The character's own skills (assuming that they have them) will be a better choice than using the item.
I will disagree and say that I see the use case of the misdirecting haversack as "I deal in illegal good or other items I want to hide for whatever reason, so that not every schmuck in town knows I'm carrying it with a casual inspection". I don't expect it to fool anyone who is a serious threat, but I do expect it to fool the town guard casual inspecting everyone who comes into town for contraband.
And I'm assuming that for whatever reason, I haven't invested in stealth to conceal objects.
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And I'm assuming that for whatever reason, I haven't invested in stealth to conceal objects.
One, that would imply that no one in your party invested in stealth - not just you.
Two, have you looked at any of the other trees?
How about the Aeon Stone (Black Pearl)? A level 12 item that lets you make a counteract check with a modifier of +30 against mental effects. What is its purpose outside of that narrow band of levels where you can afford it and you aren't being faced with Demoralize or heightened Phantasmal Killer from foes of too high of a level for Counteract to work?
And to be clear on my stand on this, I don't think that there is a one-size solution to magic items. There are too many different styles of play for any one set of rules to work for all tables and campaigns.
But as a result, we do need more alternate rules published. Such as formal rules for paying a cost to upgrade an item that has become obsolete.
At least PF2 is consistent with this? There are spells and feats that are really only good at a specific level, and for a specific amount of time before becoming obsolete as well.
Any specific examples to show?
I'm not aware of spells that become obsolete. At least not if they are heightened to highest couple of spell levels available. Yeah, level 1 Shattering Gem isn't going to be of much use at level 12, but level 6 Shattering Gem is viable.
Maybe there are some feats, but I can't think of any currently.
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yup my rogue never actually gets better at picking locks because all locks wherever I go are level appropriate for some reason, like I get the idea of having different numbers feel like they in different tiers of power, but in my experience that doesn't actually happen and you are just on a treadmill
Sounds like you might have a poor GM.
Lock DCs shouldn't get higher with level, but they should match the degree of protection expected in the setting.
That is, a hamlet dwelling won't have as high a DC as a royal vault, which won't have as high a DC as the archmage's protections over his artifact.
If you climb a tree at 1st-level, the DC for the same tree should not be adjusted later just be because you made it to 20th-level.
A mountain at 5th should not pose a problem at 15th, but could have a higher DC if an avalanche sheared the face, removing handholds, or if you were beset by a storm cast upon you by spellcasting enemies while climbing.
The rules don't create hamster wheel effects. Ineffectual GMs do.
At least PF2 is consistent with this? There are spells and feats that are really only good at a specific level, and for a specific amount of time before becoming obsolete as well.Any specific examples to show?
I'm not aware of spells that become obsolete. At least not if they are heightened to highest couple of spell levels available. Yeah, level 1 Shattering Gem isn't going to be of much use at level 12, but level 6 Shattering Gem is viable.
Maybe there are some feats, but I can't think of any currently.
mostly poison/disease spells use the dc of the poison/disease and not your spell dc
At least PF2 is consistent with this? There are spells and feats that are really only good at a specific level, and for a specific amount of time before becoming obsolete as well.Any specific examples to show?
I'm not aware of spells that become obsolete. At least not if they are heightened to highest couple of spell levels available. Yeah, level 1 Shattering Gem isn't going to be of much use at level 12, but level 6 Shattering Gem is viable.
Maybe there are some feats, but I can't think of any currently.
Battleform spells are the most obvious kind. Every spell with bad (+2) damage scaling especially when they do appropriate damage the level they are introduced. Magic weapon/fang after level 4. Poison/disease spells. That sort of thing.
Battleform spells are the most obvious kind. Every spell with bad (+2) damage scaling especially when they do appropriate damage the level they are introduced. Magic weapon/fang after level 4. Poison/disease spells. That sort of thing.
OK. Those are some reasonable examples.
And how could I have forgotten the Witch Hex Personal Blizzard. Even Acid Splash heightens better than that.
Still, this idea of planned obsolescence is unsatisfying no matter where it is found. It doesn't become good justification for it to have on items just because it also happens in spells.
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I'm thinking...
One fix would be to just have some way to pour money into an item to scale up its DC and item level. You want a misdirecting haversack that works at level 17? Okay. Sure. Pour in the money to upgrade your existing one and you can totally get that. Maintains balance because you're still paying a level-appropriate amount of gold to get whatever the effect is, and you can keep those things updated appropriately as they improve.
Admittedly, I also like the idea of being able to blow a hero point to make the random item that you've had in your pack for the past 12 levels function with your current Class/Caster DC.
Personal Blizzard heightens just fine, though. It's an average of just about 1 damage per spell level when you get it, and it stays that way your entire career. Now, it's bad. I'm not saying that it's not bad. It's just that it's just as bad when you get it as it is at level 20.
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At least PF2 is consistent with this? There are spells and feats that are really only good at a specific level, and for a specific amount of time before becoming obsolete as well.Any specific examples to show?
I'm not aware of spells that become obsolete. At least not if they are heightened to highest couple of spell levels available. Yeah, level 1 Shattering Gem isn't going to be of much use at level 12, but level 6 Shattering Gem is viable.
Maybe there are some feats, but I can't think of any currently.
Proficiency feats that do not upgrade.
And every spell can hieghten, but many stop becoming useful even hightened. Burning hands? even fireball becomes well superceded by higher level spells. There are some, like shocking grasp and magic missile and acid arrow, that are pretty much at the top tier of a very specific tier of what they can do, that people will have specific need for, but generally a lightning bolt in a level 4 slot is going to be better than a shocking grasp in that slot.
As caster level up, they really do need to replace the spells that they are casting most often, not just count on hieghtening the same spells from level 1 to level 10 spells. I believe items are largely the same way.
I personally really dislike APB as it was implemented in PF2 and don’t think it fits well into the rest of the game (I think it makes casters worse)…
Why do you think it makes casters worse?
Being forced into spending part of a power budget on getting more accurate with a weapon and doing more damage with that weapon is not a choice every caster wants to make. More spells is the thing most casters really need and ABP doesn't provide any of that. So while martials are getting all of their essentials at levels that they really need them, casters are getting things that most of them can afford to wait a couple of levels to get, and in the mean time could be using the wealth to by scrolls, staves, wands and other ways to cast more.
I'd imagine because they do not have to spend money on weapon runes, so they can spend more of it on staves and wands and the like. If you adjust party wealth down to account for ABP, more of that burden falls on casters. If you don't, casters still don't have to spend wealth on armor runes, but martials are still more ahead relative to them.
Hmm maybe, but at the same time the magic items that are useful for casters end up being the more common drops as the martial items are mostly obsolete using ABP.
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To be clear, I think a good GM can make APB work. I also think a good GM can make the basic system work and it all boils down to tone, and what the GM is trying to create.
I just think that making martials work more streamlined and with less thought while giving casters nothing is a system that can easily perpetuate people thinking casters are terrible/under powered. I think that more spells per day should have been a built in feature of ABP.
I use abp but I solved the caster disparity by simply giving more caster loot and also put in some ancient staves that get leveled up through the campaign.
At more gear and free staff upgrades
I mostly so abp because it's easier on me and most of my players were Brand New and came from 5e
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This is part of what makes TV a pretty solid book. There's more than a few things in here, consumable and permanent, that are just good forever. No DCs getting in the way, just solid items that work in their lowest form and continue to do their thing while maybe having upgrades that add extra scaling or abilities.
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Yes, I think the biggest issue with the APB was the recommendation to completely remove the +1 bonus items from exitance and remove the wealth allocation that would be dropped for them. There is a valid value to the party getting the first 'big damage' weapon or rune at an early level, and the party choosing to invest in giving their front line character that weapon and using them to crush the bigger opponents down quickly. Utilizing the APB as presented out of the book pulls the run out of that 'standard' story element of teamwork.
All the weak runes weapons that might have been sold and invested into items for the magic user cease to exist since that wealth is deemed no longer needed. Many magic users probably did perfectly fine without a striking weapon, or if they had one, was using a discarded older one that would have gone up for sale otherwise.
If striking runes still exists, along side APB, they would primarily be useful for potentially brining your fighter or martial up in damage ahead of the normal curve. At higher levels, it could be sold off, or there would be ways to make it valuable to less martial characters if you didn't get the striking abilities from level only with APB, and it also needed a specific rank for each. That would make old striking runes have continued value to less martial characters at higher levels. Helping them to fill in damage when they resort to secondary situations and doing weapon damage. It is true that the striking runes don't have to be as common then, so you can tone them down. But even as you do that, you need to keep an eye on the impact on the non-martial characters. And honestly, I'd rather error on giving them extra treasure and letting them sell some of the extras that is no longer useful for them, to get some interesting extra 'wonderous' or consumables with the extra treasure.
The APB highlight the martials dependence on equipment for their classes combat performance scaling over levels, while casters, when they lose the money that equipment they don't need, takes away their budget for toys and caster breadth bonuses such as staves and wands, and potentially for those interested use of consumables such as scrolls or potions. So it comes right down to for a martial the equipment is key to maintaining damage potential, while for casters, equipment provides primarily breadth.
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I just think that making martials work more streamlined and with less thought while giving casters nothing is a system that can easily perpetuate people thinking casters are terrible/under powered. I think that more spells per day should have been a built in feature of ABP.
None of the core concerns I see people address about playing casters are effected in any way by making it easier for a fighter to switch weapons, so hard disagree on this being an outcome.
If anything I see the opposite complaint much more frequently, with players getting frustrated at a lack of long term investment options for casters.
yup my rogue never actually gets better at picking locks because all locks wherever I go are level appropriate for some reason, like I get the idea of having different numbers feel like they in different tiers of power, but in my experience that doesn't actually happen and you are just on a treadmill@Unicore: I sort of agree with you that worldbuilding is an issue here. But it has to come from two sides.
Most of the heist scenes I've seen in APs and scenarios have used level-appropriate DCs for obstacles. In theory it's the sort of thing where actually simple DCs should be used a lot. While the casino or whatnot might have an elite security chief, that doesn't mean everyone who works there should be a level 10 card dealer or something. If the players were to brute-force the situation they'd be up against level-based DCs of their main opponents. But the point of a heist is to circumvent all that and find gaps in the defenses where the barriers aren't elite strength.
Think of a typical James Bond movie; he's knocking out a lot of guards that don't really stand much of a chance. Makes it look easy, most of the time, because he's rolling against DCs that make sense for the situation, while Bond is actually overpowered for the situation. It's only coming into contact with main opponents that he really has to exert himself and roll level-appropriate DCs.
If adventures were like that, items with static DCs might keep making sense a lot longer. But I don't really see adventures like that a lot.
I feel like that is a GM/AP writing problem.
Occasionally they need to give you the opportunity to heist the local small time casino where you stealth past the guard and make your way to the vault/chest and it's an easy lock (for you) because you're way higher level than the challenge.
It's just most GMs don't want to spend screen time on something you're guaranteed to succeed at, and then waive away the whole thing. Then you feel like somehow the world you're living in somehow only has level appropriate challenges for you and you never can find that small time casino/gambling parlor.
And I'm assuming that for whatever reason, I haven't invested in stealth to conceal objects.One, that would imply that no one in your party invested in stealth - not just you.
Two, have you looked at any of the other trees?
How about the Aeon Stone (Black Pearl)? A level 12 item that lets you make a counteract check with a modifier of +30 against mental effects. What is its purpose outside of that narrow band of levels where you can afford it and you aren't being faced with Demoralize or heightened Phantasmal Killer from foes of too high of a level for Counteract to work?
To be clear, I'm not saying all items are that way. An item to counteract mental affects is pretty clearly a combat item. And you can't access it until you're the appropriate level. And by the time you out level it, probably lower level challenges just aren't going to succeed against your save-err rather your not going to fail the DC-and after 3 or so levels the counteract check no longer succeeds. It has a very limited lifespan because it's intended to be a combat item.
And to me that is the difference. An item that has a purpose of being used in combat and an item that is used outside of it.
And regarding the stealth comment, perhaps it's not that no one in the party invested in stealth but rather maybe I don't want the party to know about the illegal goods I'm moving. There could be plenty of reasons where I don't want to rely on my party members.
I'd imagine because they do not have to spend money on weapon runes, so they can spend more of it on staves and wands and the like. If you adjust party wealth down to account for ABP, more of that burden falls on casters. If you don't, casters still don't have to spend wealth on armor runes, but martials are still more ahead relative to them.Hmm maybe, but at the same time the magic items that are useful for casters end up being the more common drops as the martial items are mostly obsolete using ABP.
I wonder if it's feasible in one campaign to allow some players to choose to use ABP and some characters to use standard rules.
Because it is a fair point that if you are adjusting down party wealth then caster can spend some of that wealth as freely as they would have liked because they're given things they don't really want to use.
I'm not sure how much wealth by level the effects you're given for free by ABP represent. In PF1 it was recommended to reduce WBL by half, but the ABP rules don't seem to give a number.
I think though, once you figure out how much value ABP represent at each level, let the players who want ABP use it and let those who don't not use. And use "wealth by level reset" as has been talked about before on these forums. Wherein at each level up you check the value of items you have against how much wealth your supposed to have and you give up things if they exceed WBL. It does away with the tedious book keeping of items that they party mostly expect to sell.
For some "wealth by level reset" really chafes but it's what my group has done for years because we find so little value in keeping track of loot if no one plans to use it, just to drag it back to town to sell it.
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For me, specific magic items are almost always disappointing. There's a lot of fun and interesting ones, and property runes but... They're pretty much never better than the standard flaming/frost/corrosive etc.
Now, this may well be the fault of the energy runes but... Some items are just SO bad. Piston gauntlets? How do we end up with piston gauntlets?
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An item to counteract mental affects is pretty clearly a combat item. And you can't access it until you're the appropriate level. And by the time you out level it, probably lower level challenges just aren't going to succeed against your save-err rather your not going to fail the DC-and after 3 or so levels the counteract check no longer succeeds. It has a very limited lifespan because it's intended to be a combat item.
And to me that is the difference. An item that has a purpose of being used in combat and an item that is used outside of it.
I don't think I am understanding your point.
Being a combat item doesn't mean that it is not annoying that it is only relevant against a narrow band of enemies.
Why isn't there an equivalent item that is level 3 and gives an appropriate counteract level and bonus that can be used in combat at that level? How about level 7? How about level 18?
What is it specifically about level 12 that makes Mental effects something in game balance or world building that means that we should only have an item at that level to use to counteract those mental effects?
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I personally never understood the "magic item tree" complaint. I always saw it as "look at all the cool items I have". Compared to now where its "look at all the cool items I have and will later have to sell to get more". Idk to me it feels like now its even more of a magic item tree where you need to keep chaging its leaves or else it just ugly (outdated).
Also a lot of wasted book space typing the same item 4 times.
The magic item tree looks dumb in the mind's eye. Having to buy a cloak, a ring, a belt, armor, a weapon, and the like to meet the saving throw minimums makes everything look like exactly the same like they're checking boxes.
Some of us want magic items to feel like Sting in Lord of the Rings or Excalibur. Very unique, make you more powerful, and not something everyone else around you is wearing.
You want magic items to feel magical, not common. PF2 has not hit the mark on that, but at least everyone doesn't have to be draped in exactly the same magic items to meet the math of the game other than weapons.
Personally I like magic items as either being absolutely character defining or to not have them with nothing in between. Build enablers like the magical bandoliers are the kinds of things I care about, anything less than that does not matter to me. The worst case scenario is a magic item that everyone wants.
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My favorite magical items are the ones that let me do something extra.
I hate build defining magical equipment as I feel like my character is worthless without it. I prefer my characters to stand up without magic and to use magic to give me more things
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Personally I like magic items as either being absolutely character defining or to not have them with nothing in between. Build enablers like the magical bandoliers are the kinds of things I care about, anything less than that does not matter to me. The worst case scenario is a magic item that everyone wants.I personally never understood the "magic item tree" complaint. I always saw it as "look at all the cool items I have". Compared to now where its "look at all the cool items I have and will later have to sell to get more". Idk to me it feels like now its even more of a magic item tree where you need to keep chaging its leaves or else it just ugly (outdated).
Also a lot of wasted book space typing the same item 4 times.
The magic item tree looks dumb in the mind's eye. Having to buy a cloak, a ring, a belt, armor, a weapon, and the like to meet the saving throw minimums makes everything look like exactly the same like they're checking boxes.
Some of us want magic items to feel like Sting in Lord of the Rings or Excalibur. Very unique, make you more powerful, and not something everyone else around you is wearing.
You want magic items to feel magical, not common. PF2 has not hit the mark on that, but at least everyone doesn't have to be draped in exactly the same magic items to meet the math of the game other than weapons.
I really hate this. Needing a magic item to make your build work sucks a bit, because it reveals that your are not awesome. Just your items are.
It's why I strongly prefer ABP, because a martial without potency and striking runes just doesn't can't handle the game as it's written.
Doubling rings, or the thrower's bandolier exist because the underlying rules of the game make it impossible to play those builds (without breaking the bank) because of how they're written.
Don't get me wrong, I do want magic items to be interesting and cool. But if by "character defining" you mean things like I mentioned then I simply can't agree.
If instead you mean something more like everyone in the party buying a Horn of Fog, and getting either the Blindfight feat or Cat's Eye Elixir and now your party is acting like they're ninjas from the Village Hidden in the Mist.
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An item to counteract mental affects is pretty clearly a combat item. And you can't access it until you're the appropriate level. And by the time you out level it, probably lower level challenges just aren't going to succeed against your save-err rather your not going to fail the DC-and after 3 or so levels the counteract check no longer succeeds. It has a very limited lifespan because it's intended to be a combat item.
And to me that is the difference. An item that has a purpose of being used in combat and an item that is used outside of it.
I don't think I am understanding your point.
Being a combat item doesn't mean that it is not annoying that it is only relevant against a narrow band of enemies.
Why isn't there an equivalent item that is level 3 and gives an appropriate counteract level and bonus that can be used in combat at that level? How about level 7? How about level 18?
What is it specifically about level 12 that makes Mental effects something in game balance or world building that means that we should only have an item at that level to use to counteract those mental effects?
Sorry, looking back I realize now it's unclear because we lost sight of what I was originally talking about, which was the Misdirecting Haversack. I was saying I think the misdirecting haversack is okay as is, because it's not intended to be used in combat and not meant to be used against whatever level you happen to be challenges. It's more meant to be able to walk into a town that has some tightened security (or other place with tightened security) and be able to get past the average below level guards without needing to fight them. They ask to check your bags at the security point, you let them and they find nothing of consequence because your have the misdirecting haversack, and then you continue on. That's it's purpose and it's fine with that.
I agree with you that items intended for combat at least need to have multiple "tiers" to the item across many levels so you can continue to use the item throughout your career if you choose.
I guess my broader point is that items that let your character do something, even it's mostly RP, out of combat are working perfectly fine within PF2.
I've got a character build that I've picked out several items that fit that sort of description, they include:
Brightbloom Posy - ability to speak with flowers (like speak with plants)
Decanter of Endless Water
Deteriorating Dust
Horn of Fog - this is actually useful in combat
Jar of Shifting Sands
Flask of Fellowship
Insistent Door Knocker
Traveler's Any Tool
Bottomless Stein
I've been combing through the items trying to find things that would fit well on the character and be helpful, both in and out of combat.
And to this threads point...it's a disappointing number because so many of the ones for combat are of such limited life that it makes me not interested in purchasing one.
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I'm kinda 50/50 on build-enabling items.
Going beyond basic weapons - which are technically build-enabling items - in some cases it just makes sense, e.g. the Thrower's Bandolier or the rather lame Gunner's Bandolier. Sometimes you simply need a gadget or wacky armament to fit a build. And if that's the case, that item strongly influencing your build or even making it possible in the first place isn't bad, imo. However, 2e doesn't have a whole lot of that, as beyond the numbers it is mostly designed to be as equiment-neutral as possible. In general that's nice. However, it also contributes to the fact that extremely few equipment pieces in this game feel even remotely like they do anything beyond getting you up to the required numbers. On Friday, my group played a homebrew goblin one-shot. The mundane pieces of equipment we got up to shenanigans with felt more exciting and effective than 99% of magical items we have gotten in our main campaign over the last 3 years. Yeah... that's not a good look.
On the other hand, I can absolutely see why people wouldn't like that stuff. As Claxon said, it can overshadow your character quite a bit. It can also lead to the Diablo problem where everyone is running around with the same three sets of gear.
Therefore, I would favour items that don't necessarily enable builds, but rather ones that smooth out builds or change them in interesting directions. Actual build-enablers should be reserved for cases where the fantasy requires them.
My opinion of 2e so far has been that they've put more effort into non-combat play relative to 1e (and every previous version of D&D, for that matter). It seems to me that downplaying combat related magic items makes sense in that regard, though I was certainly put off by how many once/day items there are.
I haven't run enough sessions beyond 2nd level to really assess the impact on our gaming (and we're currently paused). I wonder if it will result in more of the 5-minute day scenarios, or convince my players to deal with combat differently? Hopefully, we'll be back to playing by early summer and I'll get to find out.
PS: Relic sets in the Treasure Vault may prove to be interesting, IMO.
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Entering the fray randomly, I'll give my two cents:
While I do agree that the 1/day restriction is quite generic and DC items should have a way to scale into higher levels than they should be, I still think the items Paizo have released so far have been decent. Those below level 3 aren't all that useful, that's true. However, once you're early to mid levels, they start getting more interesting and you can actually afford to branch out, which makes me pretty happy with them overall. I had several items with my Monk in Age of Ashes and we ran from 1 to 11 (had to stop the campaign), I was almost maxing out on my invested items, something I didn't think would be an issue. I had several utility items, specially healing stuff, so that I could heal a bit mid-combat both myself and my frontline friend (Dex Flurry Ranger).
One thing is for certain, though, some items aren't that great, but most of them are flavorful and interesting, which is pretty much what I asked for way back then during the playtest.
As for basing builds and playstyles around an specific magic items, I think it's cool, however I think the Relic System is a decent solution for these types of characters. They offer interesting abilities and roleplaying opportunities and they have built-in scaling. If a player wants an existent specific item's effect, I would definitely consider it as a GM (having the same level-restriction as the item, of course).
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Whenever I make magic item systems for generic systems like savage worlds or gurps, I tend to lean more in the direction of magic items giving you more options and utility than be direct power enhancers; like maybe I have some frost oil for your weapons or weird trick shot arrows; but most of the time, its gear that lets you tackle adventuring problems in a novel way that would otherwise be tricky.
I do know that while "item master" is a fantasy some people (like myself) enjoy, but most people I know tend to want their gear to only have a slight role in how good they are and have the focus be on how good their personal power is. I do wish that people didn't see using items to enhance yourself as "you not being cool, but your items being cool" since like... a cool as heck magic sword in the hands of an unskilled user is still pretty useless; just useless in a more flashy way
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I do wish that people didn't see using items to enhance yourself as "you not being cool, but your items being cool" since like... a cool as heck magic sword in the hands of an unskilled user is still pretty useless; just useless in a more flashy way
I think the problem in part comes down to the degrees of enhancement sometimes and the way that enhancement is factored in. You're right in that a bad fighter with a great weapon isn't going to be amazing, but that's not always the best comfort when you're also useless as long as that weapon is out of your hands, no matter how skilled your character is supposed to be.
Items that give options or utility or enable new modes of play, like you describe in the first paragraph, tend to feel a lot better because you're often rewarded for using them cleverly.
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The cool magical series that let's you fly or cast fireball or shit like that is awesome. But potency and striking runes are terrible because the game is built around you having them. So you need them, target than them being a nice cook to have special thing. Anything that is a basic math fixer is terrible IMO. And even the runes that add elemental damage are bad because they complete for best in slot because there are so few ways to get extra damage.
I want awesome magic items. I don't want "fix the basic math" items.
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Do people really think elemental runes are better than fearsome runes on a fighter’s weapon? Is that a general consensus i some how missed? Because critting with a maul and having a prone enemy with a -2 to everything at level 12 has been incredible on a fighter, and sets up lots of critical hits on reactions. Any kind of casting monster or enemy is usually done once the end up critically hit from my fighter’s hammer.
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As far as I know, the only crit based rune anyone cares about is crushing. Caster bosses stop existing at level 7 thanks to silence 4 and basic trip anyway so fearsome isn't particularly doing anything extra there.
Crushing also gets around any mental, emotion or fear immunities too
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I just don't like crit based effects because crits aren't very reliable without set up. And if you can manage to get the set up together, they're probably going down pretty quickly even with it.
And besides that, fighter has access to Intimidating Strike so fearsome rune isn't doing anything the class couldn't.
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As far as I know, the only crit based rune anyone cares about is crushing. Caster bosses stop existing at level 7 thanks to silence 4 and basic trip anyway so fearsome isn't particularly doing anything extra there.
Crushing also gets around any mental, emotion or fear immunities too
You must play with a really tactically weak DM to have casters stand there starting at 30 feet away to stand in the silence and wait to die. I would never allow that kind of weak tactical set up.
No wonder you view the game as you do.
Caster enemies should not be played like martial enemies where the set up is not already prepared prior to the arrival of the PCs with buffs in place with adjusted spell lists to deal with common tactics a caster would know were going to be used against them.
Otherwise casters would have never survived the world if a simple silence spell was the death of every caster.
As far as I know, the only crit based rune anyone cares about is crushing. Caster bosses stop existing at level 7 thanks to silence 4 and basic trip anyway so fearsome isn't particularly doing anything extra there.
Crushing also gets around any mental, emotion or fear immunities too
You must play with a really tactically weak DM to have casters stand there starting at 30 feet away to stand in the silence and wait to die. I would never allow that kind of weak tactical set up.
No wonder you view the game as you do.
Caster enemies should not be played like martial enemies where the set up is not already prepared prior to the arrival of the PCs with buffs in place with adjusted spell lists to deal with common tactics a caster would know were going to be used against them.
Otherwise casters would have never survived the world if a simple silence spell was the death of every caster.
Characters by level 7 at minimum a speed of 35 (25base -5plate +10longstrider +5fleet). Stride into sudden charge is 105ft of engagement. With elf base and nimble you're up to 45 base and 135 max range. Boots of Bounding? Another +5 speed. Nobody's standing 30ft away waiting to die, you're either so far away most spells don't function or you're dead to rights.
Can you mitigate this? Obviously. Giant multi-level rooms. Difficult terrain everywhere. Level -x meat shields that don't take any encounter budget but block movement. Invis and illusions so your location isn't immediately obvious. A bunch of glyphs of warding along obvious approaches. You have to do quite a lot in this edition to keep caster bosses from popping like a balloon in the face of a good party. Or just give them all silent casting.
Sure, if the +4 flying boss mage in an open field is 500ft away pumping fireballs, chain lightnings, eclipse bursts, etc into you, you're probably toast. Even high ref characters are just fighting to not crit fail those. That's more of a puzzle trying to figure out how not to die before it runs out of ordinance.
Edit: anyone have a list handy of spells that actually function from outside of effective player engagement range? 150+ feet or so.
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Caster bosses stop existing at level 7? lol
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Caster bosses stop existing at level 7? lol
Yeah tell that you my +3 lich with a castle full of traps that pretty much tpk'd the party
But he was nice about it, and let most of them live as there were bigger problems
As far as I know, the only crit based rune anyone cares about is crushing. Caster bosses stop existing at level 7 thanks to silence 4 and basic trip anyway so fearsome isn't particularly doing anything extra there.
Crushing also gets around any mental, emotion or fear immunities too
You must play with a really tactically weak DM to have casters stand there starting at 30 feet away to stand in the silence and wait to die. I would never allow that kind of weak tactical set up.
No wonder you view the game as you do.
Caster enemies should not be played like martial enemies where the set up is not already prepared prior to the arrival of the PCs with buffs in place with adjusted spell lists to deal with common tactics a caster would know were going to be used against them.
Otherwise casters would have never survived the world if a simple silence spell was the death of every caster.
Characters by level 7 at minimum a speed of 35 (25base -5plate +10longstrider +5fleet). Stride into sudden charge is 105ft of engagement. With elf base and nimble you're up to 45 base and 135 max range. Boots of Bounding? Another +5 speed. Nobody's standing 30ft away waiting to die, you're either so far away most spells don't function or you're dead to rights.
Can you mitigate this? Obviously. Giant multi-level rooms. Difficult terrain everywhere. Level -x meat shields that don't take any encounter budget but block movement. Invis and illusions so your location isn't immediately obvious. A bunch of glyphs of warding along obvious approaches. You have to do quite a lot in this edition to keep caster bosses from popping like a balloon in the face of a good party. Or just give them all silent casting.
Sure, if the +4 flying boss mage in an open field is 500ft away pumping fireballs, chain lightnings, eclipse bursts, etc into you, you're probably toast. Even high ref characters are just fighting to not crit fail those. That's more of a puzzle trying to...
Yes. I would eliminate this as a DM. If it became apparent a caster cannot survive in the game world because of a single spell combined with a group. I would completely adjust caster behavior in a fashion where they would survive.
If the game designers have created a situation of turning certain enemies into trivial fights due to a single spell, then I see no reason why a caster enemy would even exist in the world given the easy access to that resource. So if every group you are in uses this tactic, every single major enemy would have the means to counter it.
These types of situations are bad game model design that hasn't taken into account how evolution would work. If a single level 4 casting of a spell eliminated casters, they would have done the following:
1. All died off due to this extremely easy tactic.
2. Adapted to deal with this tactic by creating lairs that did not allow easy access to attack them or tactics capable of countering this tactic.
3. Casters would work in groups.
So yes, I would adapt to some common tactics used against a caster enemy so that this never work as planned against any enemy of substance.
When a player is stating at level 7 and above caster bosses are all dead, it definitely means the DM has not been adapting to his party's tactics creating a very easy game where his players have adapted an easily available tactic that trivializes challenges in the game.
I despised this in any game I play and have always ensured once I see such a tactic implemented, the tactic is used on the players in equal measure and with equal effectiveness. In my view as a DM, the enemies must evolve or they wouldn't even be a threat to begin with. If the two hundred year old lich was easily beaten by a 4th level silence with a moderate challenging group, he wouldn't even have become a 200 year old lich of any power as a group would have already showed up to crush him with their level 4 spell.
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So the fighter has to wait for silence to be cast, then rush so far away from the rest of the party that any healing or support is 2 turns away?
I mean, it can work, but it can backfire too, especially if the caster is huge or bigger.
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I also notice that 4th level Silence doesn't have the Aura trait. But assuming that it is run as though it does and follows the Fighter around...
It is only a 10 foot emanation coming from the ally.
Two scenarios:
Either the enemy is noticeably higher level than the lone Fighter charging in.
Or the spellcaster enemy has allies of its own.
In the first scenario, the boss spellcaster can move out of range of the silence, eat the AoO from the Fighter - if it even causes damage, then cast something. It is certainly not going to be an instant win for the Fighter against this spellcaster.
In the second scenario, the spellcaster can step away to safety behind their ally linebackers - assuming that they weren't there to begin with. And again, it isn't much of an instant win. The spellcaster may not have enough actions to cast a spell that round, but the Fighter isn't going to be chewing through all of the minions to get to the spellcaster again before it gets more actions.