Epic Destiny for the Swordmage (PEACH)

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

DKase

Nov 29, 2008 13:51:51
Since I've yet to see an exclusive ED for the Swordmage, I've decided to try my hand at cobbling one together. All constructive comments are welcome!

Edge of Nothing

Pre-requisites: 21st level, Swordmage

After countless years of study in both the arcane and martial arts you have reached a level of enlightenment unheard of in your time. You effortlessly rend both time and space with your blade, coming and going as you see fit, beholden to no one but yourself. Great portents proceed your arrival, and wonders are left behind in your wake.

Immortality - What You Make Of It
Countless times you have passed between planes, and dimensions. Drawing sustenance from the very power that holds all existence together. After one final trip, you merge completely with the binding force of reality itself and begin a new existence as the ultimate force of your own dimension.

Edge of Nothing Features

All Edges have to following features

Ultimate Aegis (21st Level) - When you mark someone with your aegis, they are marked with both the Aegis of Assault and the Aegis of Shielding. You can trigger both of them with a single immediate reaction, or just one of them with a free action. In the case of the latter, the conditions for triggering the Aegis (a marked enemy damages an ally) must be met. In the case of triggering both aegis simultaneously, you may only use one attack or utility power associated with the trigger of the aegis.

Dimensional Rejuvenation (24th level) - Every time you are subject to an effect with the teleport keyword, you can spend a healing surge to regain HP in addition regaining a previously spent Swordmage utility or attack encounter power. When you re-appear you can make a saving throw against all conditions that are currently placed on you that a save can end.

Aegis Recovery (30th level) - When ever your Aegis triggers, you gain hit points as though you had spent two healing surges and refresh a previously expended Swordmage Attack or Utility daily power.

Edge of Nothing Power
Paradox - Edge of Nothing Utility lv. 26
In your moment of need you can think of no greater ally then yourself. You send a call out across time and your future self immediately appears in response.
Daily*Teleport
Minor Action
Effect: You pull in another copy of your self from one round into the future, which appears in a square adjacent to you. Both of you have move, standard, and immediate actions for this round. Both of your share the same pool of hit points, powers and action points. Any condition that is imposed on one of you effects you both. At the beginning of your next turn, you and your double are removed from the game. While removed from the game nothing can effect you and you can take no actions as they have already been spent. You immediately re-appear in a square that was previous occupied by either you or your double at the beginning of your turn on the following round, any one that is occupying the square is slid the absolute minimum distance to allow you access to the square.
#2

wyld_mutation

Nov 29, 2008 14:53:04
Dimensional Rejuvination (24th level) - Every time you are subject to an effect with the teleportation keyword, you can spend a healing surge to regain HP in addition regaining a previously spent encounter swordmage utility or attack encounter power. When you re-appear you can make a save against all conditions that are currently placed on you that a save can end.

The regaining a power thing is a little too powerful. A proper design will mean you never run out of powers in a fight... At the cost of your healing surges... Which also heal you anyway. Drop the regaining of a power and it'll be fine.

I'm not sure how good "Ultimate Aegis" is, nor how powerful 50% healing would be ahenever an Aegis triggers.
#3

DKase

Nov 29, 2008 23:42:33
The regaining a power thing is a little too powerful. A proper design will mean you never run out of powers in a fight... At the cost of your healing surges... Which also heal you anyway. Drop the regaining of a power and it'll be fine.

From what I've seen, most ED's have a means of recovering their powers in the middle of a fight. How would you compare this to say... the Demigod ability to always have an encounter power ready? Or the Archmage ability to regain their Dailies? This is pretty much a continuance along those veins. It also goes a little in making up the next issue...

I'm not sure how good "Ultimate Aegis" is, nor how powerful 50% healing would be ahenever an Aegis triggers.

I'm not exactly positive how effective the Ultimate Aegis would be either to tell you the truth. Mileage will definitely vary depending on how the DM runs encounters. I feel the ability to always respond with an Aegis trigger of one form greatly enhances the main defender aspect of the Swordmage, as well as allow some tactical versatility with there triggers. For example, if an attack is directed at the party's rogue the Swordmage can now trigger both Aegis as an immediate reaction, nerfing damage and providing a flank. If another marked enemy attacks the party's wizard in the same round, the Swordmage can respond by triggering the shielding aegis only, since triggering one is a free action so long as the usual conditions are met.

In my experience, Aegis triggers don't happen too often, and ideally I believe that's supposed to be the intent. The point behind a defender's mark is to keep the enemies attention focused on the defender after all. How ever I felt that at these levels a basic melee attack with a probable flank in response to damage already dealt or a damage nerf where many creatures may be aiming to inflict a damning status effect might not be enough to keep an enemy focused on you. So with this ability, the monster doing the attacking will have to way the options of damaging a party member against strengthening you. Since multiple marking is possible at this level for a Swordmage, this could aid in drawing the attention of several monsters during an encounter.

BTW, if you use the Aegis of Assault with this, you can also spend a healing surge to regain a total of 75% hp back and an Encounter power back as it will also trigger the Dimensional Rejuvenation feature. I figured this would balance against the other ED's "Guess what, I'm back from 0 HP" features.

Would you think it'd be more balanced if the I swapped the levels of Dimensional Rejuvenation(would become a lv 30) and Aegis Recovery (would become lv 24)?
#4

evilbob76

Nov 29, 2008 23:57:22
The swordmage Aegis ability is only great because it forces the enemy to make a choice... attack the swordmage who will usually have good defenses, or attack someone with weaker defenses and suffer a penalty. With this epic destiny, the Aegis has been buffed so much that there isn't really a choice... the enemy will just attack the swordmage everytime.

If that's what you were aiming for then go with it.

I can see it now, marked enemy attacks an ally, and you'd get a basic attack, Meteor Strike, Circle of Devastation, half your hit points back, can roll a save against all effects on you, refresh a daily power, can spend a healing surge and refresh an encounter power, AND can reduce the damage of the attack.....
#5

DKase

Nov 30, 2008 1:03:11
The swordmage Aegis ability is only great because it forces the enemy to make a choice... attack the swordmage who will usually have good defenses, or attack someone with weaker defenses and suffer a penalty. With this epic destiny, the Aegis has been buffed so much that there isn't really a choice... the enemy will just attack the swordmage everytime.

If that's what you were aiming for then go with it.

That is the intent more or less, yes. A Swordmage's defenses are very well rounded, so there's usually a much higher chance of it not fully effecting the Swordmage at the least. I also feel that it may force an enemy to commit to a less than ideal attack vs. the Swordmage due to the threat of a near total recovery.

I can see it now, marked enemy attacks an ally, and you'd get a basic attack, Meteor Strike, Circle of Devastation, half your hit points back, can roll a save against all effects on you, refresh a daily power, can spend a healing surge and refresh an encounter power, AND can reduce the damage of the attack.....

Yep, you're regaining a lot, but are still limited to the normal allotment of actions in a round outside of action points and the Paradox utility. However, if the DM is willing to risk that crapstorm, then you know they have something major planned.
#6

evilbob76

Nov 30, 2008 1:45:47
Here's just one of my concerns...

A Coronal Guard could Dragon Scales after every Aegis... it's untyped so it stacks.. and lets not forget he'd have temp hp from Silver Shield.

I would abuse the hell out of this with certain multiclass powers and items to the point of broken-ness. But then again, I think a lot of the class-specific ED's are pretty broken anyways... according to D&D, it's easier to kill a demigod than it is to kill a drifter...

Oh and that cluster- I described on the Aegis reaction should actually work according to the power descriptions, since one of them can be used during AoS, and the other during AoA, and both are triggering.
#7

DKase

Nov 30, 2008 3:06:36
Here's just one of my concerns...

A Coronal Guard could Dragon Scales after every Aegis... it's untyped so it stacks.. and lets not forget he'd have temp hp from Silver Shield.

Hm, haven't thought of that. Guess I read it as a power bonus at the time. Good catch, I'll have to find a way to circumvent that.

Oh and that cluster- I described on the Aegis reaction should actually work according to the power descriptions, since one of them can be used during AoS, and the other during AoA, and both are triggering.

Didn't think of someone using dual riding powers on a trigger either. I'll change it so it'll allow only one rider power.

As for abusing the feature, well it still relies on the DM allowing it to happen by attacking someone other than the marking Swordmage.
#8

DKase

Nov 30, 2008 3:20:04
Okay, so I fixed it so that the lv 24 and 30 class features only recover Swordmage powers. This excludes recovery of Paragon Class specific powers or Epic Destiny Powers.

I also altered it so that you can only use one associated power on a dual trigger of the Ultimate Aegis.
#9

demiteddybear

Dec 01, 2008 2:39:41
Aegis Recovery (30th level) - When ever your Aegis triggers, you gain hit points as though you had spent two healing surges and refresh a previously expended Swordmage Attack or Utility daily power.

I'm not so sure about this; first of all you gain two healing surges, that is fine by itself, all the destinies have some sort of feature or spell that does this. However you also regain a daily spell, but in the feature before it you regain a health and an encounter. So regaining a daily aswell seems overpowered, because you never run out of encounters or dailies and you're constantly regaining health, plus the fact that having health and a daily power recovery in one is also too powerful.
#10

DKase

Dec 02, 2008 0:19:23
I'm not so sure about this; first of all you gain two healing surges, that is fine by itself, all the destinies have some sort of feature or spell that does this. However you also regain a daily spell, but in the feature before it you regain a health and an encounter. So regaining a daily aswell seems overpowered, because you never run out of encounters or dailies and you're constantly regaining health, plus the fact that having health and a daily power recovery in one is also too powerful.

Well, to keep things in perspective, this is the lv 30 class feature. After this you become your own dimension.

Also, this is not a feature you can trigger on your own. The DM must attack an ally with a marked monster for you to unleash it. This is the level where a basic attack (or a damage nerf) plus a possible power use might not be enough to get a monster to pay attention to your mark. This is Orcus thinking I'll use my Death Touch against so and so because they can do x, I may suffer an attack but it's worth it to cripple the party in this manner.

And there is a HP limit on Dimensional Rejuvenation since you still only have so many healing surges. The encounter power recovery will trigger regardless, but you are still trading an action for it. Unless A) other allies use teleporting powers on you, B) you are up against Monsters that can teleport you as park of an attack or C) there is a feature in the battle the allows for teleportation. In the case of A, I feel that any power that encourages teamwork of this nature is good, In the cases of B and C, then you're just very well suited for that particular type of battle, which you should be since teleportation attacks are your specialty with this Destiny.