Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 jovis70 Oct 05, 2010 20:50:26	I was talking to my fellow gamers this weekend about how to make defiling more appealing and useful and we came up with an idea now I know this has been talked about in an other thread but I thought i would bring it up anyway. ***************************************** I thought I would start out with what was in the 2nd edition setting. 2nd edition defiling: Memorizing spells defiles an area in yards based on spell level and location (Forest or boulder fields) Effect on living creatures though only plants are destroyed within the radius, living creatures also suffer. Any being in the radius of a defilers magical summing makes an immediate save vs spell. If the save succeeds, there is no effect. If the save fails, the being receives an initiative modifier penalty equal to the level of the highest spell memorized. This modifier comes into play at the first opportune moment. The pain can never keep a character from performing an action during a round. The initiative penalty only postpones when the action occurs.  ************************************************* for comparison here is the current 4th edition version   4th edition Arcane Defiling Arcane feature At-Will * Arcane, Necrotic Free action      Personal Trigger: you make an attack roll or a damage roll as part of an arcane daily attack power. Effect: you can reroll the trigger roll but mist use the second result, in addition each ally (willing or Unwilling) within 20 squares of you takes necrotic damage equal to half his or her healing surge value. This damage ignores immunities and cannot be reduced in any way. Special: you can use this effect once for any arcane daily attack power you use, affecting any single attack roll or the damage roll for that power *******************************************  and here is my idea:  My House rule; Arcane Defiling Arcane feature Encounter   Arcane, Necrotic Free action Personal Trigger – you cast an arcane spell Effect: you add a +4 to the attack and +1D6 per tier to the damage. In addition each creature with in a 20 squares of you is slowed until the end of their next turn. Special: you can use this effect twice in an encounter but only once per turn   ********************************************* so I was thinking the above would be fair and balanced and more interesting to play
#2 Cyber-Dave Oct 05, 2010 21:14:14	I prefer the defiling rules as written in the 4e Dark Sun campaign guide personally...
#3 mouthymerc Oct 05, 2010 22:06:13	Why wouldn't you use this power?
#4 aumshantih Oct 06, 2010 1:06:18	It's not bad house rule. I've been working on something similar myself (see the houserules thread). And as for why you wouldn't use defiling - well, asides from the social penalties, you may be in terrain that can't support defiling (there's not enough plant life, etc).  The way things are written in the 4E  campaign setting there is almost *NO* reason to defile.
#5 Cyber-Dave Oct 06, 2010 1:18:45	It's not bad house rule. I've been working on something similar myself (see the houserules thread). And as for why you wouldn't use defiling - well, asides from the social penalties, you may be in terrain that can't support defiling (there's not enough plant life, etc).  The way things are written in the 4E  campaign setting there is almost *NO* reason to defile.  So, in other words, there are no penalties; there are no rules that specify "how much plant life is required to defile," which means the power can be used anywhere, and social penalties only apply when survivors live to tell the tale about you defiling. So, this is a flat out striker strength damage boost to all arcane spellcasters. And you think this is "not a bad house rule?" Ok... There is plenty of reason to defile in the rules as written. Some daily wizard spells have much better effects if they hit; sometimes, missing is just not an option. And lets not forget the paragon path, epic destiny, and other such features, that further enhance the effects of defiling. Some people have this misguided belief that defiling needs to be SO good that there is no mechanical reason not to defile. The only reason not to defile is role-playing. And in order to make that choice, you have to shoot yourself in the foot (by choosing not to get all the great benefits that defiling grants). Personally, I think that attitude is a big mistake. Punishing people for a RP choice amounts to telling them not to make that choice. I think that is a detriment to the game. In this case, I think the rules as written do a much better job mitigating the benefits and penalties of defiling.
#6 aumshantih Oct 06, 2010 11:14:58	As I said, they are rules in progress.  I've only run one session so far, and I'll see what develops in play. You are right about not putting in fiddly bits about alterring terrain, and what happens when you are out of things to defile.  I'm still working on it. The rules as written aren't bad, but they don't explain to me *why* the Sorceror Kings reduced the world to desert and silt.  Note that the SK's, as written up in the Creature Catalog, all have much better defiling rules than available to players. My hope is to come to something that is an actual temptation for Arcane characters to use, and fits the setting closer to the 2nd Edition description (which I read and used to play back in the day.) You obviously don't think it's a problem, but there are many of us on this forum who want Defiling to have more teeth.  Defiling magic is perhaps the biggest change to the setting that sets it apart from mainstream D&D worlds.  I appreciate that WOTC took the gamist approach, and made preserving Arcane casters mechanically identical to standard Arcanists.   But in my Athas, I'd like to make it a bigger deal than is presented in the standard books.
#7 Cyber-Dave Oct 06, 2010 12:20:14	As I said, they are rules in progress.  I've only run one session so far, and I'll see what develops in play. You are right about not putting in fiddly bits about alterring terrain, and what happens when you are out of things to defile.  I'm still working on it. The rules as written aren't bad, but they don't explain to me *why* the Sorceror Kings reduced the world to desert and silt.  Note that the SK's, as written up in the Creature Catalog, all have much better defiling rules than available to players. My hope is to come to something that is an actual temptation for Arcane characters to use, and fits the setting closer to the 2nd Edition description (which I read and used to play back in the day.) You obviously don't think it's a problem, but there are many of us on this forum who want Defiling to have more teeth.  Defiling magic is perhaps the biggest change to the setting that sets it apart from mainstream D&D worlds.  I appreciate that WOTC took the gamist approach, and made preserving Arcane casters mechanically identical to standard Arcanists.   But in my Athas, I'd like to make it a bigger deal than is presented in the standard books. Um, between power choices, paragon paths, epic destinies, and feats, a player can become just as powerful a defiler as any NPC. He just doesn't get that power out of the box. And the game does explain exactly how the world got turned into the wasteland it is via defiling. At the DMs discretion, a player defiling causes the terrain to change to defiled terrain (which is explained in the DSCC). A player defiling can warp the terrain of a battlefield just as NPC defiling warped the terrain of the world as a whole. Nine out of ten defiling house rules I have seen on these forums are nothing but an example of awful game design. My apologize to the original poster, but I percieve this thread as yet another such example. If you are trying to give defiling "more teeth," do it via homebrew feats, paragon paths, and the like. Defiling "power swap" feat options strike me as a good way to do this. IE: create feats that allow you to swap one of your attack powers for a defiling themed attack power. Perhaps an attack power that damages everyone around you and gives you some sort of bonus to the next arcane attack power you use, or some such...
#8 jovis70 Oct 13, 2010 11:26:42	its been interesting reading the above posts, but not much in the way of letting me know if this is balanced or not.
#9 Bera Oct 13, 2010 14:42:16	I think boosting the defiling rules is only appropriate when you have PCs who opt to be preservers, and pretty hard-core preservers at that. I did it with a small change to the ritual rules, where arcane rituals get a +10 bonus to the arcana check if you defile. Sure it's potentialy powerful, but its job is to tempt characters. I'd rethink it if the players wanted a more morally ambiguous game that included templar and defiler characters. A defiler-friendly party doesn't need more powerful defilers. They're already potentially creating new defiled terrain with each spell, and get rerolls to make sure their big guns hit and hit hard. Since the official rules have to take into account that PCs may be preservers or defilers, I think the official rule is reasonably balanced. Arcane characters get a small but not insignificant boost. Its bad enough that I make my PCs make a moderate bluff check to conceal their arcane powers. If you want to go back to 90s mechanics, however, you should look at all of them. The 90s Dark Sun had another mechanic that made defilers stronger than preservers: defilers simply advanced in levels faster than preservers. Furthermore, defilers suffered from charisma penalties and (with the Defilers and Preservers book) were more likely to learn offensive or destructive spells then defensive and protective ones. The 90s system I like best, however, was in Spells and Magic where defilers simply cast their spells faster and better than preservers.
#10 big_goon Oct 13, 2010 16:12:30	The 90s system I like best, however, was in Spells and Magic where defilers simply cast their spells faster and better than preservers. In any given situation where an arcane caster is desperate, the DM gives him/her the option to defile to get a free action point (the effect of the defiling is dependent on the situation, as decided by the DM: damage to a dying ally, loss of plant life in a vegetable-rich area, defiled terrain effects, fantastical attack by the "world of Athas", etc). This should only be handed out once per encounter. Players are still limited to the use of one action point per encounter.
#11 xpochian Oct 14, 2010 0:16:29	The 90s system I like best, however, was in Spells and Magic where defilers simply cast their spells faster and better than preservers. In any given situation where an arcane caster is desperate, the DM gives him/her the option to defile to get a free action point (the effect of the defiling is dependent on the situation, as decided by the DM: damage to a dying ally, loss of plant life in a vegetable-rich area, defiled terrain effects, fantastical attack by the "world of Athas", etc). This should only be handed out once per encounter. Players are still limited to the use of one action point per encounter. i'd see this working...
#12 whitelycan Oct 14, 2010 3:55:43	This is a total double edged sword. On one hand you can make defiling more powerful and make characters think they'd be stupid NOT to defile despite the RP consequences. On the other hand you have the defile offered by 4E that is so weak is it really worth risking your life to just make sure your daily power has a slightly better chance if hitting? Honestly I'd rather have a slightly overpowered Defile that characters use frequently than one so weak with unbalanced consequences/results that it never gets used. At least with the one that gets used, there's potential to show players that their abuse of defiling won't go unpunished. That's what you can do to make them think twice about defiling. One the other hand what can you do or say to make the 4e defile look more tempting? Nothing. Think about this. You're level 1. Say your healing surge is 8. You're 1 of 5 players. You're in an encounter and getting desperate enough to think about using defile. Face it, all your Allie are within 20 squares. That means in order to retry that daily you just used and missed with, you gotta deal 16 collective damage to your party and you might hit with your daily. "might". Here's my possible solution. Make 2 different but similar defiling effects. Have one defile suck life from plants (basically take out he damage to allies effect from the defile 4e gave us) and one that sucks life from plants AND sentient life but is in some way more powerful than the plant only version (added damage per tier or something like that) and deals half healing surge value damage to allies AND nonminion enemies (maybe slows minions for a round or something).
#13 rothe Oct 14, 2010 8:30:28	This is a total double edged sword. On one hand you can make defiling more powerful and make characters think they'd be stupid NOT to defile despite the RP consequences. On the other hand you have the defile offered by 4E that is so weak is it really worth risking your life to just make sure your daily power has a slightly better chance if hitting? Honestly I'd rather have a slightly overpowered Defile that characters use frequently than one so weak with unbalanced consequences/results that it never gets used. At least with the one that gets used, there's potential to show players that their abuse of defiling won't go unpunished. That's what you can do to make them think twice about defiling. One the other hand what can you do or say to make the 4e defile look more tempting? Nothing. Think about this. You're level 1. Say your healing surge is 8. You're 1 of 5 players. You're in an encounter and getting desperate enough to think about using defile. Face it, all your Allie are within 20 squares. That means in order to retry that daily you just used and missed with, you gotta deal 16 collective damage to your party and you might hit with your daily. "might". Here's my possible solution. Make 2 different but similar defiling effects. Have one defile suck life from plants (basically take out he damage to allies effect from the defile 4e gave us) and one that sucks life from plants AND sentient life but is in some way more powerful than the plant only version (added damage per tier or something like that) and deals half healing surge value damage to allies AND nonminion enemies (maybe slows minions for a round or something). With a surge value of 8, your party has 5 x 4 x 8 hp or more. That means you have 160+ collective hp. 10% loss is not a biggie in my opinion. Especially if you can get some temporary hp's to cover some of the losses.
#14 big_goon Oct 14, 2010 13:44:30	This is a total double edged sword. On one hand you can make defiling more powerful and make characters think they'd be stupid NOT to defile despite the RP consequences. On the other hand you have the defile offered by 4E that is so weak is it really worth risking your life to just make sure your daily power has a slightly better chance if hitting? Honestly I'd rather have a slightly overpowered Defile that characters use frequently than one so weak with unbalanced consequences/results that it never gets used. At least with the one that gets used, there's potential to show players that their abuse of defiling won't go unpunished. That's what you can do to make them think twice about defiling. One the other hand what can you do or say to make the 4e defile look more tempting? Nothing. Think about this. You're level 1. Say your healing surge is 8. You're 1 of 5 players. You're in an encounter and getting desperate enough to think about using defile. Face it, all your Allie are within 20 squares. That means in order to retry that daily you just used and missed with, you gotta deal 16 collective damage to your party and you might hit with your daily. "might". Here's my possible solution. Make 2 different but similar defiling effects. Have one defile suck life from plants (basically take out he damage to allies effect from the defile 4e gave us) and one that sucks life from plants AND sentient life but is in some way more powerful than the plant only version (added damage per tier or something like that) and deals half healing surge value damage to allies AND nonminion enemies (maybe slows minions for a round or something). Don't worry, you (the defiler) don't get damaged, only your allies. ... unless, you're one of those rare "altruistic defilers"?
#15 fromost_the_grimm_02 Oct 14, 2010 14:43:16	This is a similar concern to one I have.  Like most here, I find myself leaning towards a more tempting defiling mechanic; like the OP I was considering all arcane casters being able to defile on any arcane attack power, be it at-will, encounter or daily, for +2 to the attack roll and +1d6 necrotic damage per tier to the damage. Additionally, all creatures within a number of squares equal to the arcane attack power's level ( ... or half the level?) take 1d6 necrotic damage per tier. And yes, I know this will chew through minions pretty quickly.  But nothing says 'expendable' like an Athasian controller killing off the minions immediately surrounding her to empower a particularly important spell.  Although as has been pointed out, in classic Dark Sun non-Draconic defiling only targeted plant life so this effect could actually be done away with altogether, with maybe a Paragon or Epic tier feat that lets you siphon from animals for greater bonii. Anyways, but my real concern is what all this will mean within the campaign.  Even assuming the goody two-shoes PCs won't defile, some NPC casters most definitely will.  A Sorcerer-King's pet Defilers -- i.e. those above any repercussions due to that association -- would probably defile even with at-wills; it's their job to do their master's wishes efficiently with intimidating force and efficiency.  Sorcerer-Kings may terminally frown upon excessive defiling within their city-states (even if there are rituals which can subsequently undo the damage), although they'd care not one jot about any defiling outside the city; they'd just want the job done. But would this mean *too* much defiling?  Is there such thing as too much defiling?  Would this result in dark circles of sterility littering the streets of most city-states?  Should the main trading routes between the city-states and the various merchant house-sponsored forts be pock-marked with ashen circles as a testament to all the raids that have been fought along them over the past hundred years ..? Does anyone have any experience with the effects of frequent defiling due to a houserule making the mechanic more tempting ..?
#16 phoffman Oct 14, 2010 18:29:09	Allowing people to defile with ritiuals it could give Defiling a little more temptation. Ritual Defiling Feat.  The ritual caster subsitutes part of the magical components required for the ritual with life force from the surrounding area.  Reduce the casting cost of any Ritual by Half.  If the ritual requires a focus, the cost is not reduced for the focus. [You could have it defile a radius in feet equal to 1/10th the cost (gp) of the ritual.]
#17 lord_rock Oct 14, 2010 21:46:12	I like the inclusion of rituals into the defiling world... both suggestions about this have been good.  My PC's don't use rituals nearly enough but it's a nice additional boon. What has been successful in my home game is the following: -defiling is default. -defiling has the usual re-roll bonus and you get 1+power lvl temp hp when you defile. -defiling is only done on dailies or with the feat that lets you use it while using an action point with at wills and encounter powers. -Preserving using at wills- automatic. -preserving using encounters or daily= moderate arcana check.             -arcana check success= you preserve.             -arcana check fail= you need to make a moderate endurance check or take 1+power lvl dmg. -defiling also causes defiled terrain in close burst 1 per tier.  Any bigger takes too much time to re-arrange the battle map and draw out and replace minis and such.  Defile twice in the same area and it deals damage to all creatures not just allies.  Non-allies can choose to be dazed instead of taking dmg (no auto minion killing). The idea is that when you defile you always take a little too much from the world and thus get the temp hp (which stack with others THP in my game).  When you preserve you try to save the world but sometimes you fail and when you fail you have to take that energy from your own body. This adds some rolls but I just have my arcane characters pre-roll when they are "on deck" if they know they want to preserve so as to not slog us down. Preserving isn't automatic but you have to fail 2 skill checks for it to be worse than it already is.  My group is still low level so we may have to put some caps in place for THP and damage taken when we hit late paragon and epic.  Defiling is better and if you plan ahead you can make it extra damaging but so far in the balance that I am ok with (the PC's have already seen what happens to defilers who get caught though!).  For me this has been good balance. I think I'll supliment my above rules with the ritual defiling stuff presented in this thread and a homebrew feat or two and call it good.  I planned to tip the balance in defiling's favor but not make it automatic.