Diacritic Runes

[ElementalofCuteness]

If you apply them 1 at a time after you make another rune, the base rune then how are these ever worth it? My GM and I came to the thought they are free actions which you trace when tracing other runes because if you don't they seem so weird that it should not be worth the actions. Instead of adding INT Mod to damage why not trace a second damage rune or even a third!? Since the average of 2d6 is 7 which is higher then your iNT mod and the minimal is 2 which is only 2 lower then your 5 INT mod.

Am I going insane thinking about this?

[Squark]

They generally seem more useful engraved. Sun-, En- and Inth- seem decent. Ur- is not very good, though, and should definitely be called out as underpowered, especially since I haven't scene a mechanic for replacing runes in your repetoire and it is awful at higher levels.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think if they need a separate action to apply, but an action compression for tracing a rune with a diacritic would be nice as a higher level feat.

[TheFinish]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I think if they need a separate action to apply, but an action compression for tracing a rune with a diacritic would be nice as a higher level feat.

This exists already, it's one of their 20th level capstone feats.

Shades of Meaning: "Whenever you Etch or Trace a Rune, you can choose to also apply one diacritic rune you know to it, as part of the same action."

It should definitely be lower. In fact, both capstone feats need serious revision, because they're frankly both absolutely awful.

[ElementalofCuteness]

So they are pretty useless, understood. That is a shame they seemed really cool too!

[Xenocrat]

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

If you apply them 1 at a time after you make another rune, the base rune then how are these ever worth it? My GM and I came to the thought they are free actions which you trace when tracing other runes because if you don't they seem so weird that it should not be worth the actions. Instead of adding INT Mod to damage why not trace a second damage rune or even a third!? Since the average of 2d6 is 7 which is higher then your iNT mod and the minimal is 2 which is only 2 lower then your 5 INT mod.

Am I going insane thinking about this?

Consider etching. You can preetch the whetstone rune on your shield boss and gauntlet, but invoking both in one round doesn't do double damage to a creature (it's in the rules somewhere). So you might add a diacritic in round 1 to the one in your shield boss to enhance its damage, then trace fire or lightning (presume you don't know the other one), then invoke both for 2d6+4 and 2d6. (Assuming you're already in melee range and have all three actions available.)

Round 2 you still have an etched whetstone, you can repeat.

The other diacritics are better than the +Int damage one, though. The retracing one trades an engraving slot for an action saved in combat to instantly reapply something like a whestone that you blew up on the first melee range invocation opportunity (thus it's limited to 1/10 minutes as an effective quicken "spell").

The Rune of Corruption (and any holy version in final) will melt things with unholy or fire weakness.

The Rune of Expansion is your Fireball (or Thunderball). At 6th level take Tracing Trance and you can lay down any base rune plus this from 30' away, then next round invoke for a 15' explosion.

Shades of Meaning is insanely powerful at 20th level. For ranged rune application it saves you two actions to apply a diacritic. So you can apply your ranged fire/shock plus either explosion or corruption rune and then immediately detonate on round 1. And do this every round.

If you apply three (or with Tracing Trance, four) melee/touch self runes in a round, you can apply 3-4 free action diacritics to enhance them. Crazy action savings. If you were surrounded by four angels you'd be able to put damage rune plus corruption on all of them in round 1, add two more damaging runes with a different booster of your choice in round 2, then invoke all six of them.

That said, Ur- (+int) desperately needs scaling past the first couple of levels, and they need many more diacritics and runes in general in the final release.

[ElementalofCuteness]

Does the tracing one work on etched runes?

[PossibleCabbage]

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

Does the tracing one work on etched runes?

I don't see why it wouldn't. But the use case for this is questionable, since the diacritic runes mostly apply to invocations and your etched runes are going to be ones you don't plan on invoking much (since it takes 10 minutes to reapply them once you invoke it.)

Potentially it would be interesting if the Preservation Rune would re-etch an etched rune and re-trace a traced rune. Since that one already has a 10 minute cooldown.

[Xenocrat]

Rethinking, the retrace rune is only good for melee application (one action) when you think they’ll be at range (two actions to replace base rune) after invocation. So whetstone an adjacent ally you expect to charge in and away from you. Saves an action next turn to reapply after first invocation.

I think you’ll use all your etchings on front liners with whetstone at early levels. After they strike for bleed you invoke (against different targets) for early spike damage.

[Red Griffyn]

Why is the consensus that these are useless?

Get a familiar, put some 'etched to creature rune', take artist's performance/tracing trance/etching strike.

Artist Performance (stride/stride/trace)
Etching Strike (strike/trace)
Tracing Trance (trace)

Next turn, trace one more time (putting the return once used diacritic runes on both a fire/electricity rune -> one in the first round and one in the second round). Then invoke them into oblivion. If they don't die, invoke them again. If they do die, transpose etch the runes onto another enemy and make extra use of your free tracing action compressions.

They are really solid options with transpose etch. With that feat you can split up the 2 action ranged trace across two rounds. Trace two runes onto yourself then transpose them to an enemy and invoke/ranged detonate or w/e you need to do.

The real question is does a diacritic rune alter the base run to form one instance of a rune or does it still count as 2? I think RAI/RAW they talk about it modifiyng it and making a new 'rune'. So I think you can transpose a diacritic modified rune onto someone else. Think about putting the runes on yourself with the expanding rune, then transposing them (i.e., 2 runes at range for 3 actions, not 4) and the remote detonate your AOE rune bomb.

[Xenocrat]

The “return once used” diacritic can only be used once every ten minutes. Can’t apply multiple times per combat.

Transpose runs into duration problems on traced runes. It’s for moving etched ones around the party.

[Red Griffyn]

Xenocrat wrote:

The “return once used” diacritic can only be used once every ten minutes. Can’t apply multiple times per combat.

Transpose runs into duration problems on traced runes. It’s for moving etched ones around the party.

Fair enough, I didn't see the 10 minute cool down. Still, it is an easy free rune action compression that you can load up once combat.

Tracing lasts to the end of the round of your next turn, so transposing a rune the next turn to invoke is perfectly fine and gives you that 3rd action 'trace' that can let you break up ranged tracing or diacritic ranged tracing across multiple rounds.

Nearly all of the L1-L6 feats are geared towards action compression:
- Strike to invoke
- Strike to trace
- Stride/Stride Trace
- once per combat free action
- quickened but to trace (no invocation)
- Demoralize to Invoke
- Raise a Shield and Trace

That is why transpose is so good. You can easily pick up 1-3 free runes a turn with the right feats and turn planning. That gives you flexibility to toss that extra rune or a diacritic altered rune onto an enemy.

Just think about tossing the fire rune onto your shield as a freebie when you raise your shield. Then raise it next turn, adding the expanding rune, transpose your little nuke, and the invoke it.

Hell use a shield bow with a bladed gauntlet + blazon's of shared power (drop STR and focus on maximizing damage with with your damage runes). Human it up and you can grab all L1/L1/L2 action compression feats to be a switch hitter extraordinaire by just constantly tossing out runes for transposing and later invoking.

[Squark]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

Does the tracing one work on etched runes?

I don't see why it wouldn't. But the use case for this is questionable, since the diacritic runes mostly apply to invocations and your etched runes are going to be ones you don't plan on invoking much (since it takes 10 minutes to reapply them once you invoke it.)

Potentially it would be interesting if the Preservation Rune would re-etch an etched rune and re-trace a traced rune. Since that one already has a 10 minute cooldown.

That's only as long as it takes your spellcasting party members to refocus. Why not invoke some or even all of your etched runes for nova effects during fights?

[pH unbalanced]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

Does the tracing one work on etched runes?

I don't see why it wouldn't. But the use case for this is questionable, since the diacritic runes mostly apply to invocations and your etched runes are going to be ones you don't plan on invoking much (since it takes 10 minutes to reapply them once you invoke it.)

I think this will be a build decision. Some builds will mostly use etched runes for their buffs and never invoke them. Some builds will mostly use etched runes as preloads/focus spell equivalents and invoke them every combat. (And assuming they will have time to re-etch between combats.)

[PossibleCabbage]

Squark wrote:

That's only as long as it takes your spellcasting party members to refocus. Why not invoke some or even all of your etched runes for nova effects during fights?

You certainly can, but one of the reasons you etched a rune is probably that you decided that having the passive effect would be good to have all the time, for more damage, more speed, see the unseen, etc. But when you invoke them that effect goes away for the rest of the fight. So it's not "something you never do" but it's something that has a cost in terms of it lowers your effectiveness until you get to "refocus".

This is potentially a change the class needs, that is making it so an etched rune doesn't fade to be useless once invoked (turning off the passive boost), it just can't be invoked again until you spend 10 minutes of maintenance.