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| #1copycatzeroDec 10, 2008 22:46:31 | I was thinking about this earlier today... the lack of components for spells/prayers is nice in 4E, but it tends to lose something in the flavor department. Yes, I know, I can put whatever fluff I want into the game. If I want my wizard to rattle off a half-minute speech before she obliterates everything in the room with her daily, that's my perogative. But I always like it when the fluff comes with some crunch. I don't know how many people ever played the Slayers d20 game (or, at least, read the manual), but they had a special system when it came to spells and incantations. To cast a spell in Slayers d20, you had to make a specific check, based on the power-level of the spell. Obviously, more powerful the spell, the harder the check was. In addition to feats and class features, one of the things you could do to improve your check results was to chant an incantation. Incantations were never required to cast spells, but they added a nice boost to your check with the downside of requiring you to be able to speak and broadcasting to the entire field your intentions (I don't remember if it also slowed down the spellcast). I was thinking, then, about a way to include a concept like this into 4E. I came up with something like this: INCANTER Prerequisites: Int 13, any arcane class, trained in Arcana Benefit: Your study of arcane formulae grants you the incantation power. Incantation -- Feat Power You chant words of power that bolster the strength of your spell. At-Will - Arcane Minor Action -- Personal Effect: The next spell you cast before the end of the turn receives a +1 power bonus to damage per die of damage. Special: You must take the Incanter feat to use this power. Using this power provokes an opportunity attack. If the opportunity attack successfully damages you, you lose the bonus granted by this power. You cannot use this power if you are unable to speak. Obviously the feat needs to scale with level. I figured the fact that it required an action to perform and provoked an attack of opportunity gave some leeway in the amount of bonus damage -- if I'm going to use up one of my actions and risk getting smacked, a flat +1/+2/+3 doesn't really cut it, in my opinion. I considered making it +2 per die, but that might be a little too powerful. [EDIT] I changed "until the end of your next turn" to "until the end of the turn", since the intention really is "use this power, then cast your spell, one after the other". I initially thought of "you can only use this once per round" as well, but (a) the power bonus doesn't stack with itself anyways, and (b) that penalizes people who want to chant, cast, chant, action point, cast. Thoughts? |
| #2QubeDec 11, 2008 6:03:55 | some (perhaps useless) notes: (1) doesn't that need to be feat bonus instead of power bonus? (2) I don't think there are other feats that give 'damage per die'. I think it would be more appreciated to let your reroll ones. (though statistically less, its more fun for the player (darn I rolled bad ... wait I can reroll some of them!) (3) BTW you're not helping the wizard here, but the warlock: wizards (controllers) keep themselves bussy with minions and status effects. warlocks (strikers) deal damage. (heck, curse lets them even roll more dice ...) (4) charge powers are sometimes a bad idea: a power casting time x50, damage x5, seems a useless power (who's going to spend 50 rounds of combat casting?) but in fact is greatly overpowered: anytime you can 'kick in the door', chant 5 minutes, then kick in the door and obliterate your enemies ... Even here: spend minor action to 'charge'; kick in the door, and let your wizard use his supprize round to cast a more powerfull spell. (5) the mechanism you explain ("more powerful the spell, the harder the check was.") is basically a form of power attack: reduce the chance on success (to hit), but increase the damage. |
| #3nachtsiegerDec 11, 2008 8:34:17 | Fantastic. All I have to do as a Wizard is stick back and use this once/twice per round to gain a respectable boost to my damage, and all for provoking opportunity attacks. Wait, I don't. There's nothing near me that I can provoke it from. Excellent. |
| #4copycatzeroDec 11, 2008 8:40:04 | I don't have much time at the moment, but let me quickly answer a couple of these:(1) doesn't that need to be feat bonus instead of power bonus? No. It's the power that's granting the bonus, not the feat. Also, making it a feat bonus would penalize those who take feats like Astral Fire. (3) BTW you're not helping the wizard here, but the warlock: wizards (controllers) keep themselves bussy with minions and status effects. warlocks (strikers) deal damage. (heck, curse lets them even roll more dice ...) (a) It doesn't apply to curse damage. It affects the spell itself. I don't think the rules allow for it applying to curse damage, but I don't have time right now to make sure. (b) Wizards get an effect out of it. Wizard spells deal damage. Higher level wizards spells have multiple dice of damage to be affected. Warlocks deal MORE damage. Warlocks are strikers. All's right with the world. (4) charge powers are sometimes a bad idea: Keep in mind that bonus of the same type don't stack, so you can't use this feat more than once at any given time. Furthermore, it only lasts until the end of your next turn. That being said, I probably should change it to "before the end of your turn", since the idea is that you chant and then cast immediately. Fantastic. All I have to do as a Wizard is stick back and use this once/twice per round to gain a respectable boost to my damage, and all for provoking opportunity attacks. Doesn't stack, should be "until end of this turn", it encourages use when you're not being threatened, a feat that always adds damage to the attack works under the conditions you mentioned as well. |
| #5copycatzeroDec 11, 2008 8:41:45 | [EDIT] I moved this post in with the previous one, and I'll attempt to address the other two comments.(2) I don't think there are other feats that give 'damage per die'. I think it would be more appreciated to let your reroll ones. (though statistically less, its more fun for the player (darn I rolled bad ... wait I can reroll some of them!) Unfortunately, I'm not in the position to do a little research at the moment, but I have seen something (whether a feat, racial/class feature, or magic item) that did do the "add 1 per die" thing (I think it was to a rogue's sneak attack dice). I decided on this rather than a flat bonus mechanic (+1/+2/+3 like all the other focus-type feats) to reflect more the complexity of the spell, rather than just the training of the user. A daily would require a more detailed incantation than an at-will, so the dailies (which are the ones generally in the multiple-die range) get more of a bonus. This method actually ends up giving less of a bonus to at-wills than the static feats, because they do not go up in damage dice until epic (and then only to 2). As far as the re-rolling is concerned, I don't disagree that players like re-rolling, but there's a couple problems with that. One is that if you compare it to something that does the same thing, there's the luckbender gloves, which is a free action encounter power that allows for the re-rolling one, two, or (if there were an epic version) three dice. So the feat would then become giving them the same power as a magic item, and I don't know how kosher that is. The other problem becomes even more apparent when you consider the first. As part of the balancing to make it like the gloves, you end up changing the power to an encounter one. Chant all you like, you can now only get the benefit once. What's the point, then? It's JUST fluff now, and you don't need a feat to let you add fluff. Beyond that, it give a different mechanical feel: yes, if you re-roll, your spell will be more powerful than it originally would have been, but it doesn't give the feel of the spell being more powerful than it normal can be. Which leads me to: (5) the mechanism you explain ("more powerful the spell, the harder the check was.") is basically a form of power attack: reduce the chance on success (to hit), but increase the damage. I glossed over the actual explanation of the mechanic, mainly because I didn't feel like pulling out my old manual. Now I'm in the position where I can't conveniently get the information >.< I'll try my best, though: the spellcasting mechanic in Slayers d20 was that, anyone could cast a basic spell (comparable to cantrips and some low-level attack spells) as long as you had the INT. You learned a number of spells based on your INT, and your class would give you you access to more and more complicated spells. To cast a spell required the aforementioned check (if we were to do it in 4E, it'd probably be an Endurance check). Fail the check, spell fizzles and you take nonlethal damage. Fail the check by more, you take more nonlethal (or the damage was lethal, can't remember). Succeed the check by a small margin, you cast the spell but take nonlethal damage anyway. Succeed by a large margin, you were exempt from the damage (or it was very small, can't remember). Like I said, anyone could learn and cast spells. However, unless you were high-level and in one of the prestige classes that specialized in that type of spell, you had little hope of casting the big-bang spells without doing serious injury to yourself. There were ways to gain extra bonuses to your check. Feats and class abilities, but also incantations and naming the spell. You could attempt to cast the Dragon Slave silently. It became difficult to do. When you watch/read The Slayers, you notice that none of the characters attempt to do so. If you say, when you cast, "DRAGON SLAVE!", you get a bonus to your roll. If you say: "Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows; buried in the stream of time is where your power grows. I pledge myself to conquer all the foes who stand before the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hand. May the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the power you and I possess! DRAGON SLAVE!" then your going to get an even larger bonus. The characters always seem to follow this route, and lament their inability to cast otherwise ("He's not letting up, and I don't have enough time to cast a Dragon Slave..." or the like). So, my attempt to design the feat was with these mechanics in mind. And, I'm out of time again, so I'll leave it at that. |
| #6nachtsiegerDec 11, 2008 10:31:35 | Doesn't stack, should be "until end of this turn", it encourages use when you're not being threatened, a feat that always adds damage to the attack works under the conditions you mentioned as well. I see I see. Sounds fun, I'd personally allow the stacking, as I feel this doens't add too much, nor would have a great impact if not taken at all. This is an interesting idea, though. |
| #7copycatzeroDec 11, 2008 15:31:03 | Changed how long the power lasts and responded in my last post to those other two comments I didn't have time to get to before. |