Daily Ability Discussion

Mechanical (4)
You are considered a magical construct. You do not age, nor do you need to eat, sleep, or drink or breathe. If a character would make a Heal check to heal you, they make a Mechanics or Arcana check instead. With the proper resources (DM’s discretion), any severed part of your body may be reattached or recreated with the proper resources, so long as you have not been killed and any crippling injury can be repaired with the proper resources.

Grandeur (5)
You provide a +1 morale bonus to the skill checks of all allies that can see you.

Paper's Thoughts:

Quick Roundup:
Lead by Example is definitely good, but players should be careful- if they're making an Assist build, it can trick them into wasting Ability points.

I don't particularly like Crazy Contraption or its tree, if only for the fact that it takes away from actual problem solving by the party. If it was solely used as a solution to something they cannot figure out, then yeah, that's cool. But it mostly just gets used to circumvent minor annoyances, or as a "get out of combat free" card. I also don' like anything "not magical" that doesn't lend itself to an explanation of why it isn't magical.

I appreciate Derp as a way to get an extra magic point. I don't make use of many Magic point abilities, because I like to be able to use anything I have at a given time, so when I take more than one I always consider taking Derp. I Don't like how they ruled that rolling a 2 or 3 with Derp counts as rolling a nat 1 for the purposes of awesomeness and whatever else.

Heart of Courage serves no real purpose, really. Its only really useful if the DC is 30 and you roll 25-29.

Grandeur is ok in theory, but I feel like those 5 points could be better spent. +1 doesn't make that big a difference, and half the time players will forget about passive bonuses.

Mechanical seems interesting, but I've never had a character concept that really fit it. It is almost entirely flavor anyway, which is odd given the emphasis the system places on reflavoring everything to fit your needs.

Paper Shadow wrote:Mechanical (4)
You are considered a magical construct. You do not age, nor do you need to eat, sleep, or drink or breathe. If a character would make a Heal check to heal you, they make a Mechanics or Arcana check instead. With the proper resources (DM’s discretion), any severed part of your body may be reattached or recreated with the proper resources, so long as you have not been killed and any crippling injury can be repaired with the proper resources.

While part of me wants to claim it's flavor only, not needing to breathe and being able to fix any injury on yourself (excluding death) are quite useful gameplay mechanics so it does need a cost. And some have managed to put decent work into reflavoring it for things like zombies.

Grandeur (5)
You provide a +1 morale bonus to the skill checks of all allies that can see you.

I'm mixed on this. I like it and don't think it's broken. Yet, the always on nature makes it a mild headache since you have to remember that it's there. Be a different issue if this were a videogame that kept track of it for you. Likewise, something more active like the old Thunderbird buff would also be more dynamic.

Mechanical:
This is mainly for a certain type of character, like you said it just adds flavor to the character. Though it can help when there is really no medic in the team to help you, someone with a good mechanics or arcana skill can help instead. The other parts help with certain, specific situations.

Grandeur:
The +1 that this gives you, really doesn't make all that big of a difference. Also since it's a passive ability everyone will forget about it until you bring it up again. Again, this ability is for a certain type of character.

Best of the Breed (5)
You gain two additional Attribute points. This ability may be taken up to 3 times, however, the normal limits for Attributes still apply (no Attribute may be improved above 10 normally, 12 if you have the Overachiever ability).

The Rainbow Dash (5) – 2/Day
For the next two seconds, you may move at a speed up to 30 miles per second. Moving this fast is extremely dangerous, meaning you may carry at most one creature at a time while moving at these speeds. When you use this talent, you may spend a Magic Point to increase this speed to 60 miles per second instead.

I see the use of taking Best of the Breed- once. I don't know anyone who could afford two or three uses of it. HEAVY skill focused build, maybe, someone who plans on skill checking through everything, which I'm not entirely opposed to. Better than Magic only. But Best of the Breed should really be taken in conjunction with Specialist and Overacheiver to maximize its effect.

Rainbow Dash seems painfully specific to me. I just don't know what you could possibly need to go that fast in any regular gameplay scenario. It also has to take into account if you can change direction or stop just as quickly as you accelerate. Does it speed up your reaction time too? Or do you slam into a wall and kill yourself if you don't plan it correctly? Really the only thing I could see it having a legitimate use for is trying to actually go somewhere 60 miles away, in a straight line with no obstructions of course. But hey, you can bring a buddy- who himself CANNOT travel that fast, and therefor would probably be killed by such rapid inertia shifts. 30 mile/s whiplash is instant death, usually.

Paper Shadow wrote:Best of the Breed (5)
You gain two additional Attribute points. This ability may be taken up to 3 times, however, the normal limits for Attributes still apply (no Attribute may be improved above 10 normally, 12 if you have the Overachiever ability).

A stat buff that's arguably a relic of the attribute/skill split.  I can see the worth and I don't think it's broken but am pretty meh about it outside of later game filler for an otherwise complete build.

The Rainbow Dash (5) – 2/Day
For the next two seconds, you may move at a speed up to 30 miles per second. Moving this fast is extremely dangerous, meaning you may carry at most one creature at a time while moving at these speeds. When you use this talent, you may spend a Magic Point to increase this speed to 60 miles per second instead.

Unusable in close quarters but that's not the point of it.  It's when you need to jump to another city or catch someone falling or just utterly get away from something bad.  Physics should be ignored for the passenger because that's just being needlessly nitpicky unless it's a killer GM.

ZamuelNow wrote:

Create Crazy Contraption (3) – Magic
Preparation Time: 12 Seconds
Create a Crazy Contraption, such as an improvised bicycle-powered flying machine. Crazy Contraptions cannot have combat applications and can only perform physical tasks, a ‘disenchantment contraption’ or, ‘mind-controlling contraption’ could not be built. No materials need be on hand to craft a Crazy Contraption and the process of crafting one after the preparation time takes less than ten seconds. Crazy contraptions cannot be longer than 20 feet on any given side. Other than that, feel free to use this ability to shatter the boundaries of common-sense. The contraption disappears after 10 minutes and has no monetary value.
Recycle Crazy Contraption (1) – 1/Day [Created by Paper Shadow]
Prerequisite: Create Crazy Contraption
You recreate a Crazy Contraption that you have already made today.
Surprisingly Sturdy Structure (1)
Prerequisite: Create Crazy Contraption
Your Crazy Contraptions now last for 20 minutes before disappearing.

I'm laughing since I have a campaign where one player has CCC and one has Magecraft and the CCC player has more thoroughly broken the campaign.  It sits in this spot where it intersects with "thank goodness this isn't another magic themed talent" and the power of it is borderline "This is magic, I don't have to explain it".  I can't say it hasn't been interesting and I'll note that Magic point usage means it's not spammable.  However, I do see where devs have commented that it's probably better suited as a destiny.  That said, the campaign in question is level 5 so it would still be a factor.

....Yes. Yes he has broken the talent.

The thing about CCC is that, much like Magecraft, there isn't a very clear line for what you can and can't do with it; and, unlike Magecraft, you don't have to specialize the rest of your build to break it. You just need to be able to use it creatively, at which Sunbeam excels.

Paper Shadow wrote:Best of the Breed (5)
You gain two additional Attribute points. This ability may be taken up to 3 times, however, the normal limits for Attributes still apply (no Attribute may be improved above 10 normally, 12 if you have the Overachiever ability).

The Rainbow Dash (5) – 2/Day
For the next two seconds, you may move at a speed up to 30 miles per second. Moving this fast is extremely dangerous, meaning you may carry at most one creature at a time while moving at these speeds. When you use this talent, you may spend a Magic Point to increase this speed to 60 miles per second instead.

I have used both talents.

Best of the Breed is, in my mind, the "general bad-ass" talent (Much like AoAT.) It's also good for eating up points that you plan to swap out later: because, flavor-wise, losing a couple Attributes is easy to justify or even ignore. I wouldn't recommend taking it more than once unless you have a plan, though.

Rainbow Dash is a weird animal. The character I have it on is an Endurance build, and I keep trying to work up the audacity to try the "Rainbow Battering Ram" trick sometime. I think it would combo nicely with Phase Step for enclosed spaces, too, but I don't think Hector can justify Phase Step right now. It's main use is (As Zamuel said) basically a line-of-sight teleport, although it does make for good bragging material in-character.

I will note that the talent doesn't say you have to move in straight lines: it is simply assumed that most characters can't react quickly enough to, say, navigate a maze. Most of the time I would agree, but I'd probably bend that pretty far for occasional comedic purposes or for "toon physics" characters.

Adept (6)
Whenever you roll a natural 19 using your Expert Skill, treat the result as if you had rolled a natural 20.

Spellchild (8)
Choose one of your Magic abilities when you take this ability. Once per day, you may use that ability without spending a Magic point.

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I don't particularly like either of those, but Adept in particular feels so specific as to be pointless. Especially considering the cost. Once Adept was dropped as a Requirement for Earth Ponies, I don't remember seeing anyone taking it at all

As far as Spellchild goes, it's also really expensive, but I think that it does have a place if you see a particular magic talent as being a signature of the character.

Paper Shadow wrote:Adept (6)
Whenever you roll a natural 19 using your Expert Skill, treat the result as if you had rolled a natural 20.

This is powerful on a conceptual level but for a wholly different system.  Increasing crit range is quite powerful, especial with the Spectacular Success this system has, but it's harder to directly break compared to some other options.  The main thing that nerfs this is the combat split since a wizard who crits History or Arcana doesn't just do silly damage to the final boss.  I've seen builds with this but it's pretty rare nowadays.

Spellchild (8)
Choose one of your Magic abilities when you take this ability. Once per day, you may use that ability without spending a Magic point.

Rather situational per build but the ability to turn a Magic point into a daily allows breathing room for your real MP to stay flexible.  Point cost is prohibitive but I can understand that.

Thank you in participating in the testing period of the Daily Ability Discussion. Please leave some feedback for me to read and consider before deciding to (and how) to continue...

It's disappointing that participation is low but that's a side effect of the dwindling forum population.  These could certainly stand to be increased to 3 per day in most situations.  Some sets such as Companions, Weathercrafting, and the Enchantment grouping could stand to have their own day.  Meanwhile, the Flight chain can just be done like how you've been doing upgrades.

It would also be nice to get more discussion out of the discussion.  Are there any opinions that surprised you about some of the abilities?  You might want to make it every two days when you take that into account.  Some will but not everyone will backtrack to previous entries so that extra day will help those who have work, school, ninja invasions, or whatever else to deal with.

Adept seems pretty worthless per its point cost, and it doesn't help that the ONLY times I've ever even considered it, I realized I was playing a character without an Expert skill, so no dice. A 19 or 20 out of 20 is still too few and far between to make it worth 6 points.

Spellchild, on the other hand, has been of some use to me. The fact that you have to specify which ability it is affecting when you take it is a good balancer, but not a deal breaker by any means. The 8 points... well. It seems to me that the only people who really need it are those with a lot of magic abilities, and you wont have much more room for those after taking Spellchild. I used it specifically on a character with 3 magic abilites, along with Derp, in order to be able to use all three in a day if I need it.

Am I the only one who thinks 4 points for Mechanical is a bit too high of a price for what is largely a flavor ability?  Mainly, it prices it out of standard Companion utility (which is where it would likely see the most use).  I mean for 3 points abilities give +10's on skills checks, and 5 enchanting for 4 points.  

I know its an ability that either the character concept is built around it (for flavor) or not going to be taken so its probably not that significant. but my main gripe is the companion price out w/out investing another point.

EDIT: Dammit, I just read the year dates on this thread...

ZamuelNow wrote:Are there any opinions that surprised you about some of the abilities?

I was interested in how so many of the abilities presented here were immediately written off as worthless or too expensive, considering one of the big remarks about Wanderlust was that it had fewer abilities than LL/PT. If someone were to go through and remove all the old abilities they feel weren't worth taking, I wonder how the number remaining would stack up against Wanderlust?

Note that I'm not disagreeing with the fact that a lot of the LL/PT abilities aren't so great. They aren't, which is why when we made Wanderlust we got rid of as many of the problematic ones as we could.

Yeah, but the options are still better to have. Gimmick builds and such are the spice to the game, whereas limited options means you're looking at a lot of FIGHTER HEALER WIZARD THIEF parties. the less options, the more likely people will just pick the stereotype and min-maxy stuff.

Bubblez wrote:Am I the only one who thinks 4 points for Mechanical is a bit too high of a price for what is largely a flavor ability?

Thing is, it's not just flavor since it's got a number of smaller survival benefits packaged together in a bundle. It's not impossible that it's overpriced but there is some mechanical benefit to Mechanical. That said, you could ask your GM about a waver for a Companion.

Philadelphus wrote:

ZamuelNow wrote:Are there any opinions that surprised you about some of the abilities?

I was interested in how so many of the abilities presented here were immediately written off as worthless or too expensive, considering one of the big remarks about Wanderlust was that it had fewer abilities than LL/PT. If someone were to go through and remove all the old abilities they feel weren't worth taking, I wonder how the number remaining would stack up against Wanderlust?

Note that I'm not disagreeing with the fact that a lot of the LL/PT abilities aren't so great. They aren't, which is why when we made Wanderlust we got rid of as many of the problematic ones as we could.

While Bronymous makes a very valid point of reducing redundancy, I'd like to make a different note that response may be skewed by the actual Abilities discussed. While Paper Shadow was going in order, it meant that a lot that got discussed were really basic stat based stuff that make up the first category. I bet a lot of the response would be the same for half of the Fateweaver category. While the forum did sort of have a "they changed it, now it sucks" reaction, the meatier discussion would be later if the conversation does continue. It's also worth noting that not only has time passed for people to get more used to things, we have fewer posters and there's also lingering thoughts about the Utilities to Abilities changeover.

Just found this thread. It made for great reading.

While not the thread starter, I think this is a discussion worth continuing.  The format is easy enough to follow and pick up where it left off and it was already stated that this was primarily for discussion as opposed to directly leading to adjustments.  Next in line would be the Companion category block which is composed of the Companion ability, its upgrades, and Mook.  Tossing Companion into a spoiler block due to length.

Companion:

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Companion is sorta fascinating.  It can be quite a bit of a power boost pending on the player but it can open up roleplay options.  It's one ability where most of it's strengths and weaknesses are basically the same thing.  It does have a few traps on both sides of the table since players sometimes engage in more roleplay...but not with the rest of the campaign.  I'm very glad it was added to the system but I really don't think brand new players should use it since it can be complex if it's a complete second character.  And likewise, the second character aspect makes it more difficult for the GM to plan for, especially if they go two different directions.

So far, I've never seen Mook in action.  While it can similar issues as Companion, they function differently since Mook more overtly acts as "summon disposable minion".  Manages to fit concepts a more dedicated Companion doesn't but it's probably less valuable when up for pruning.

I personally dislike companions. From both a Player and a DM standpoint they always seem really hard to keep track of after a time. "Where is _______?" becomes a normal question, and once its decided where they are, then nothing happens with them anyway. Then there's the issue of who controls the companion, DM or Player. I also personally don't like using companions as a PC, because of all the gimmicks a companion is meant to fill, it really only does one (Pet) well, and usually the 3 points could be put to something else entirely. The one time I did get a companion upon leveling, up, he was immediately replaced at the following level because he just didn't serve any purpose.

Mooks, meanwhile, seem like they're tailored to a very specific kind of character- but I have no idea what the kind of character would be. Incompetent sorcerer comes to mind. I'm sure someone could come up with quite an imaginative way to use them, but I haven't seen it.

A1C Bronymous wrote:Mooks, meanwhile, seem like they're tailored to a very specific kind of character- but I have no idea what the kind of character would be. Incompetent sorcerer comes to mind. I'm sure someone could come up with quite an imaginative way to use them, but I haven't seen it.

Well, I'm an idiot. Just remembered I have made a character with Mook. The Everliving Gentleman was using them as a decoy army. Campaign didn't get far but that is at least one example.

They were designed to help enable "minion-boss" concepts, like necromancers, conjurers, disney princesses...

Eagle Eye (1)
You take no penalties to your Perception checks from weather or atmospheric conditions such as smoke, fog, rain, etc. You can also clearly see small objects and fine details up to a mile away.

Cunning Disguise (2) – At Will
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Spend the preparation time studying a medium-sized creature. Once you have done so, that creature becomes your ‘mark’. You may add half of your Perception or Persuasion modifier (whichever is higher) as a bonus to any skill checks you make to impersonate that creature. You may only have one ‘mark’ at a time.

Alter Ego (2) – 3/Day
Preparation Time: 5 Minutes
Choose a race when you take this ability. You may spend 5 minutes to shift between your race’s natural appearance and one of your chosen race. However, this appearance is unique to you, so you cannot impersonate another specific individual. Furthermore, you always look the same in a particular race’s form. You may end the effect at any time, taking 1 minute to revert back to your natural form. You may take this ability multiple times, choosing a different race each time.

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I'll post my thoughts later.

Eagle Eye has always seemed a bit off to me. Either because it isn't as detailed in its explanation as it could be, or just because players are too liberal in interpreting it, but it doesn't ever seem to get used the way its meant to. I'll see people asking to get bonuses for their perception checks because of Eagle Eye, even though it only says you don't take penalties, and often it has nothing to do with weather conditions, but instead the "fine details"- they think that because they can see the details a mile away, it should doubly enhance their vision up close, which it doesn't. I don't understand the seeing through fog and stuff, either- birds can't do that. The Ability itself is fine, though, considering- when its used how its meant it works fine, nothing wrong with it.

Cunning disguise is meant for a spy, ninja, or assassin character, and its never seemed that useful to me. If I need something like that, I'll put points into persuasion and get one of the higher level disguise/shapeshifting Abilities.

...And Alter Ego would be something I take to supplement Cunning Disguise. I've only had one character that played with any kind of shapeshifting, and I went all out on the biggest one they had. Alter Ego would have been more useful that Cunning disguise in that regard, but I don't like the mechanics of it. You can shapeshift to another race, but according to the mechanical rules you're still limited by your own Abilities- so you can't adequately impersonate a griffon if you aren't something that can already fly, or a seapony if you can't breathe underwater, etc. Cunning Disguise has the same problem, the mechanics of these two don't take into account basic racial/species biology that is often represented through Abilities on the Character sheet. That's why I used the old GE Changeling's trickery, because when you changed to that race, you got a whole new Racial Trait list along with it, so you could do what that race could do, and lost what your own race could do.

I like the current form of Eagle Eye since the removal of the direct stat buff makes it less of a guaranteed pick and more of a choice. Seeing a mile away makes it an interesting power for some of the details you can setup for it.

Cunning Disguise & Alter Ego seem much more spy than shapeshifter oriented. I get why the old Changeling's Trickery doesn't exist since players don't use the default racials and if they don't, CT gives a ton of variable power like the old Element of Magic. There's a bit of cause and effect to it.

You Don’t Know Where It’s Been (3) – At Will
You can quickly hide any item smaller than yourself upon your person, making the object nigh-impossible to find. Make a Stealth check with a +15 bonus. The result becomes the DC for a perception check to beat in order to find the item. You can only have one such concealed item on your person at a time.

Dirty Look (3) – 1/Day
Target creature suffers a –10 penalty to its next skill check.

• Hex (3)
  Prerequisite: Dirty Look
  Dirty Look now causes the target creature to take a –10 penalty to all skill checks for the next hour.
  

Light Trap (3) – 1/Day
Preparation Time: 10 Seconds
Pull all the light within 50 feet of you into a small object you are holding. For the next 1 minute or until the object is destroyed the area affected is completely black. Treat the area as if it was obscured by a cloud of total darkness.  You may release the light trapped within the object at any time you are not in combat, either returning the area to normal illumination or releasing the light in a brilliant flash that blinds all creatures seeing it for five seconds.

Opinions: