Official Errata: Changes and fixes to the game (Subscription Recommended)

I'm pretty sure Meditate says 1d12 to all ATTACKs, and it was labeled as an ATTACK. So I at least had that.

It should still be able to be used multiple times in a turn, it's not like it can be abused too heavily. Most people only get 1 attack per round anyway, and anyone else will probably either not have a whole lot of Pips, or would be saving up for something bigger.

I actually agree it should be usable more than once a turn, because it is still an extra 2 pips for that d12.

Though with Meditate:

[-2] Meditate - Standard Utility [Created by LoganAura]
For your next two turns, you deal +1d12 damage on attacks that have two or fewer targets.

So your Where it Hurts deals an extra 1d12 damage, but wasn't actually targeting the creature.

[-2] Where it Hurts – Free Action
Trigger - You attack an enemy suffering from a (save-ends) effect.
The triggering attack deals 1d12 extra damage to that enemy.

All this ended up being is a clarification which made Where it Hurts work the way it was intended to, since it technically was adding damage to an attack which had already been finished.

Wait wait wait wait... Meditate is ALL attacks get a bonus d12 damage for the next two turns? All attacks? For the cost of -2 pips?

Yeeeaaaah.... we're gonna need to look at that again. I can get 6d12 damage off -2 pips.

Still can easily get +6d12 over 2 turns for 2 pips. Even more if you can roll well with Chain Lightning.

Yep. And to think people complained when we just increased it to -2 pips. The talent is absolutely busted, one of those things in the system we left in for people to enjoy finding and breaking - but as it's been used so extensively for a while now it's absolutely time to fix it. Frankly, we should have fixed it the moment Art of War came out - as the combos got even more ridiculous when that happened.

thematthew wrote:Still can easily get +6d12 over 2 turns for 2 pips. Even more if you can roll well with Chain Lightning.

This isn't 6d12 damage, it's an extra 6d12 damage.

The combo does 55.5 average damage in three turns. That's 18.5 damage a turn, and the average damage a turn is supposed to be ~8.

So, via meditate, I can more then double the damage I'm supposed to do following the curve.

And this damage is reliable, very very reliable.

Nehiel Mori wrote:

thematthew wrote:Still can easily get +6d12 over 2 turns for 2 pips. Even more if you can roll well with Chain Lightning.

This isn't 6d12 damage, it's an extra 6d12 damage.

The combo does 55.5 average damage in three turns. That's 18.5 damage a turn, and the average damage a turn is supposed to be ~8.

So, via meditate, I can more then double the damage I'm supposed to do following the curve.

And this damage is reliable, very very reliable.

I would like to draw your attention to the bolded plus sign. I was agreeing with you, my comment was directed at the offhand point of it being 'only' attacks with 1-2 targets.

Perhaps a quick fix is to just make it, "the next two attacks".

thematthew wrote:

Nehiel Mori wrote:

thematthew wrote:Still can easily get +6d12 over 2 turns for 2 pips. Even more if you can roll well with Chain Lightning.

This isn't 6d12 damage, it's an extra 6d12 damage.

The combo does 55.5 average damage in three turns. That's 18.5 damage a turn, and the average damage a turn is supposed to be ~8.

So, via meditate, I can more then double the damage I'm supposed to do following the curve.

And this damage is reliable, very very reliable.

I would like to draw your attention to the bolded plus sign. I was agreeing with you, my comment was directed at the offhand point of it being 'only' attacks with 1-2 targets.

Ah! My mistake, sincerest apologies.

That would probably work, though at that point I can just dump my initial pips to do a quick 2d4 + 2d12 damage on turn 1 if I have Motion Blur, Plus I can repeat every other turn if I have a +3(or even 2) move and Rapid Recovery.

@Nehiel: No problem, I just figured you hadn't noticed my pretty little plus sign.

thematthew wrote:That would probably work, though at that point I can just dump my initial pips to do a quick 2d4 + 2d12 damage on turn 1 if I have Motion Blur, Plus I can repeat every other turn if I have a +3(or even 2) move and Rapid Recovery.

@Nehiel: No problem, I just figured you hadn't noticed my pretty little plus sign.

I'm playing a Changling character that has a build like this and it's not as bad as meditate.
I did the math and its only one damage over the curve. It's fine.

The Conjurer's Pet trait's conjuration has been changed so that it can only intercept one attack for its conjurer per round. This makes it a lot less abusable with defender traits. The Skype version also had its hp reduced to 15 - not sure how it got to 20 in the first place.

This makes me sad.

If I may? Combos are meant to be good. Better than good. A good combo, executed successfully, is meant to put you over the top. That's why combos exist- otherwise, what's the point of having them? Why bother with a combo that requires two turns to set up and one to execute, when you could just use three successive attacks for as much or more damage (or healing or whatever)? There should be an advantage for finding and stringing together those techniques in a way that makes the DM think twice about what kind of monsters he puts you up against. If you just keep whittling down the individual talents because they work well together, then you're defeating the purpose, an you may as well just boil all of the talents down to [+1] Defensive Stance, [-1] Attack, [+2] Vulnerability, [-2] Heal Other, etc.

Think about every other combat system in gaming. In fighting games, you can button mash abababab for the same damage over and over, or you can learn and pull off Down, Left, Up, Up+a, Down+b, and take out half of your opponent's life bar. In (bleh) JRPGS, you either hit A repeatedly, and your spiky haired kid swings a sword as fast as he can, or you drop back activate a boon, hit the right button string, and suddenly you're 1 ft tall, glowing, red, and dual wielding a Tree Trunk and a scythe- and then you proceed to wreck anything and everything. In Skyrim, you can mash attack with mace or fireball over and over, or you can dual summon a Bound Bow, and using three different archery perks, two Conjuration perks and a decent Sneak skill, you then one-shot everyone but boss-level enemies.

Combos are all about exploitation. If you know where to look, and how to find them, the combos in this game should be just as rewarding as any of those.

Bronymous. I think you lack a fundamental understanding of how mechanics are supposed to work. If there isn't a balance, then GMs can't balance situations to your characters. This doesn't mean the result you will get is "pure win all the time", it means GMs might actually just give up and have their monsters use stuff PCs can do. Which would pretty much murder all the PCs all the time.

If something does too much damage compared to what it's supposed to do for what it costs, this means it's tipping the scales to the point of combat being pointless. Not the other way around.

Bronymous wrote:If I may? Combos are meant to be good. Better than good. A good combo, executed successfully, is meant to put you over the top. That's why combos exist- otherwise, what's the point of having them? Why bother with a combo that requires two turns to set up and one to execute, when you could just use three successive attacks for as much or more damage (or healing or whatever)? There should be an advantage for finding and stringing together those techniques in a way that makes the DM think twice about what kind of monsters he puts you up against. If you just keep whittling down the individual talents because they work well together, then you're defeating the purpose, an you may as well just boil all of the talents down to [+1] Defensive Stance, [-1] Attack, [+2] Vulnerability, [-2] Heal Other, etc.

Think about every other combat system in gaming. In fighting games, you can button mash abababab for the same damage over and over, or you can learn and pull off Down, Left, Up, Up+a, Down+b, and take out half of your opponent's life bar. In (bleh) JRPGS, you either hit A repeatedly, and your spiky haired kid swings a sword as fast as he can, or you drop back activate a boon, hit the right button string, and suddenly you're 1 ft tall, glowing, red, and dual wielding a Tree Trunk and a scythe- and then you proceed to wreck anything and everything. In Skyrim, you can mash attack with mace or fireball over and over, or you can dual summon a Bound Bow, and using three different archery perks, two Conjuration perks and a decent Sneak skill, you then one-shot everyone but boss-level enemies.

Combos are all about exploitation. If you know where to look, and how to find them, the combos in this game should be just as rewarding as any of those.

I agree, combos should put you over the damage curve if you managed to pull them off properly. However, they should not double the curve, which is what Meditate did.

Ok so how about this for an idea for Meditate?

[-3] Meditate - Minor Utility
You deal +1d12 damage on your next two attacks that have two or fewer targets.

Thanks to thematthew for pointing out an error. We'd accidentally put an old version of Plague Eater and When the Hero Gets Tough into the traits expansion. They've since been corrected and are now as follows.

When The Hero Gets Tough
You gain 5 Temporary HP whenever you are subjected to a (save ends) condition.

Plague Eater
You have regeneration 4 while you are suffering from a (save ends) condition.

Honestly, the regen 4 version seems pathetic since a good solid number of the things that you can do to give yourself save ends conditions give you Ongoing Damage, Vulnerability, or just gives you Regeneration straight out. And let's be honest, getting regen 4 because you gave yourself OD 5, or OD 2 and vuln 2 is pretty crappy when it comes to a talent.

thematthew wrote:Honestly, the regen 4 version seems pathetic since a good solid number of the things that you can do to give yourself save ends conditions give you Ongoing Damage, Vulnerability, or just gives you Regeneration straight out. And let's be honest, getting regen 4 because you gave yourself OD 5, or OD 2 and vuln 2 is pretty crappy when it comes to a talent.

It's intended as a defensive talent rather than a combo-oriented one. Being able to better-than-ignore ongoing damage below 4 and gain health whenever an enemy puts a save ends effect on you is pretty notable. We could probably buff it safely of course, but as save-ends loving builds are being experimented with actively by a lot of people I'd rather play it safe while they're all playtested before giving another huge tool.

Changeling has been edited for clarity.

True Shifter - Magic
You may use this talent while you are in the form of another race due to the effect of A Thousand Faces. If you do, you may use all of that race’s racial traits as if you were a member of that race while you are in that race’s form (though if they’re a unique non-player race, you can’t access racial traits that would collectively be worth more than 8 trait-points). This effect ends at your next extended rest. You retain access to this racial trait even if you are currently in another race’s form, though you lose access to any other racial traits you possess. You may end this effect at any time and return to your original form.

Weather-Crafter has been changed to promote more flexible character concepts. For those using it the old way, don't worry - it won't hurt your build. For the rest of us, rejoice - you don't have to be athletic or acrobatic to use it anymore.

Weather-Crafter (1)
Preparation Time: 5 Minutes
You can to alter the atmospheric conditions in a 100-foot radius. For example, you can make a sunny day rain or a rainy day clear up within the area of effect. You can also attempt a more difficult feat, such as creating a localized hurricane or forcing lightning strikes out of clouds to hit tall objects. Choose a skill when you learn Weather-Crafter, that skill becomes used for any skill checks used for these more difficult tasks - with DCs set at DM discretion.

Comment: The skill can be anything that makes sense flavor-wise, such as Athletics or Acrobatics for manually moving clouds around. However, an interesting character concept might use Persuasion to talk to the weather and ask it to change or Mechanics to manipulate a custom weather machine. As long as it makes sense, it can b any skill you like

When one skill training isn't enough... For a utility talent, you should get more than one training.

I’ve Read A Lot About it [Created by Philladelphus]
You gain training in two additional skills. You may take this talent multiple times.