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Then again... Mutlable people doing it for their skill checks... Might count as something disallowed by the Diversity Rule. Still would need a note saying such a factoid.

Couldn't we just reword it so that you have to expend a use of it before the assist roll is attempted? That basically limits it to a 3/day roll 6 times, for the cost of...6*1.5=9 racial points, 1.5 times the worth of Words of wisdom (which is a 6/day roll 3 times), Because now everybody has to expend a use of the talent to make their roll count towards the actual skill check. It could end up like this:
Lead by Example - 3/Day Interrupt
Trigger - You roll to aid someone else's skill check.
Effect - If you get a higher roll result on your die than the person you are assisting, Swap the roll results.

Not the best wording for an interrupt, but it makes it so you can only use it 3/day, even if multiple group members use it on the same check. I really didn't think it was broken for giving you a roll-6 effect until Z2 pointed out that only one person had to expend a use, and this remedies that.

Also, Xel, It seems like a mean idea to restrict one player's choice of utility talents because somebody else in the group took the utility talent first. Unless you're talking about the stacking rule, and not the diversity rule.

I don't mean being able to have party choose this... Just I don't think they can all use the same talent on the same assist checks... And yeah... Derped at which rule I was talking about, I mean the anti-stacking rule. Cause this usage would totally count as stacking the same utility on basically the same thing.

sunbeam wrote:Couldn't we just reword it so that you have to expend a use of it before the assist roll is attempted? That basically limits it to a 3/day roll 6 times, for the cost of...6*1.5=9 racial points, 1.5 times the worth of Words of wisdom (which is a 6/day roll 3 times), Because now everybody has to expend a use of the talent to make their roll count towards the actual skill check. It could end up like this:
Lead by Example - 3/Day Interrupt
Trigger - You roll to aid someone else's skill check.
Effect - If you get a higher roll result on your die than the person you are assisting, Swap the roll results.

Not the best wording for an interrupt, but it makes it so you can only use it 3/day, even if multiple group members use it on the same check. I really didn't think it was broken for giving you a roll-6 effect until Z2 pointed out that only one person had to expend a use, and this remedies that.

Makes sense. It would still be something useful for when the person attempting the skill check simply rolls poorly or it's a "all the help you can get" situation where team assistance would be expected anyways.

I don't think requiring that it be used before the check is a good idea. We already have WAY TOO MANY abilities that have the format of 'use ahead of time, often do absolutely nothing and waste your stuff.' I liked its uses only being relevant if they got, you know, use. I think maybe JUST the anti-critical measures could help; or require that only the immediate highest can be used (i.e. player rolls a 5, assistant one rolls a 10, assistant two rolls a 17, only assistant one can choose to use the talent.)

Z2 wrote:We already have WAY TOO MANY abilities that have the format of 'use ahead of time, often do absolutely nothing and waste your stuff.'

I'd argue that a number of those should actually be converted to interrupts since their wording often implies that's their intent.

Not sure if this is overpowered. But I'll post it here anyway.

Tabletop build - Lvl 1
Conjuration Missile
You need the following.

Training Certificate - 2000
Netting you the following:
Putrid Explosion
Five times per battle, you may use the following combat talent.

[0] Putrid Explosion - Free Action [5/Battle]
Sacrifice a conjuration you control. Create a burst 1 centered on the sacrificed conjuration. Deal 1d10 damage to all creatures in burst.

then you need these two combat talents
[-2] Drift of Phantasms - Standard Utility
Conjure five Phantasms, each within 5 spaces of you. They have the following stat blocks.

Phantasm - 1 HP
Size: Medium
Speed: 6


[-1] Animate Bone Mite - Reaction Utility
Trigger - An enemy within 10 spaces is reduced to 0 or less hp.
Effect - You conjure a Bone Minion in the fallen enemy’s space that has the following stat block.

Bone Mite - 1 hp
Size: Tiny
Speed: 6
Trait - Bloodhusk
When this creature dies, it deals 1d8 damage to target adjacent creature

[0] Burrow In Flesh - Standard Attack
Range: Melee
Target creature suffers 2 ongoing damage (save ends).

[0] Bloodfeast - Minor Utility
Sacrifice a Conjuration you or a willing ally controls. Target ally within 7 gains 4 hp. [*]
This power’s cost cannot be reduced.


You are now(Provided you are close enough to stuff to send you minions after) doing 5d10 damage+xd8(Where X = to the amount of creatures killed in your burst 1 5d10 explosion). On your first turn.

Fun fact, at level 2 you can do this combo for free! With rabbit filled hat.

It's a fairly good nuke build, I'd say, but not too overpowered.

Bone mite relies on enemies being KO'd (doesn't trigger from your minions) to summon it, so it's useless in a 1on1 fight, but very useful vs many minions, so it's a situational factor / dependent on the encounter design.

The 5d10 opening nuke is indeed very powerful, but slightly tricky to pull off: you have to avoid the conjurations explosions killing each other, since you can't really explode them all "at once". You can't repeat the move afterwards, either, since it's a 5/battle, leaving you with minions that can't do much other than block enemies from reaching you (which doesn't help against ranged enemies).

Ah, the Conjuration Bomber. I love using this build. Hint, there are some more tricks you can pull off to make things a lot scarier (they involve traits).

Yeah, but this was as good as I could get it on lvl 1
When you start getting it for free and then give allies extra as well

True, true. 

Zarhon wrote:The 5d10 opening nuke is indeed very powerful, but slightly tricky to pull off: you have to avoid the conjurations explosions killing each other, since you can't really explode them all "at once". You can't repeat the move afterwards, either, since it's a 5/battle, leaving you with minions that can't do much other than block enemies from reaching you (which doesn't help against ranged enemies).

You can put four of them at the four diagonal corners around a single-tile unit and blow them up without hurting the others. The fifth one would have to go off somewhere else, though. And you'd basically only need to get Drift of Phantasms off a single time for this combo; if you don't need it after that, you could always swap it out.

Philadelphus wrote:

Zarhon wrote:The 5d10 opening nuke is indeed very powerful, but slightly tricky to pull off: you have to avoid the conjurations explosions killing each other, since you can't really explode them all "at once". You can't repeat the move afterwards, either, since it's a 5/battle, leaving you with minions that can't do much other than block enemies from reaching you (which doesn't help against ranged enemies).

You can put four of them at the four diagonal corners around a single-tile unit and blow them up without hurting the others. The fifth one would have to go off somewhere else, though. And you'd basically only need to get Drift of Phantasms off a single time for this combo; if you don't need it after that, you could always swap it out.

True on the swapping. As for the corners thing, that too is tricky, mostly because it causes a "burst 2" exploding zone all around the target, and since all bursts do friendly fire, if there are allies (or the summoner) near the target, they can get hit as well. It's not a safe tactic if the combat is "clustered" or there's little room to work with (e.g. a small hallway, or in an ambush/surrounded/unexpected melee range engagement).

Unless of course the user of such a build doesn't factor such minor details as "collateral", "friendly fire" or "allies".

So expand them outward 1 square diagonally, so the corner of each burst will still hit the target. Or, line them up, and use their move actions to send them in one after the other, blowing up in range of the bad guys, and out of range of the other conjures.. The Explosion is a free action, so you can use it after they move individually.

I'd like to hear StairC's reasoning on why this isn't overpowered, and or/shouldn't be nerfed. "It's tricky to pull off" has been my own reasoning for a number of builds and combos in the past (along with "low rolls could screw it", and also "stuns and daze kill it completely"), but the counter argument has always been "worst case scenario is too powerful", and none of mine have been this bad (save one, but that was waaaay back pre nerfing spree). The worst case scenario here is that you do 5d10 damage to one or more enemies, and not even accounting for "maybe a few minions are caught in the blast as well, so that's another few d8 on top to the boss", ALL on turn 1. No one else could come close to that without spending lots of levels worth of money on items and traits, and even then, at least 1 turn of pip building will probably be in order. And at turn two, he doesn't even have to pay for it? So it's just a free map clearer or boss nuke, and after he uses that he can move on to a completely different build strategy- Meaning a level 2 party can have a full set of these 5d10+ nukes, and still maintain heal and tank roles (some of which are also a bit crazy).

Pretty simple. This really takes almost 4 standard actions to pull off; since you need to spend 2 pips, a standard action and all the uses of a trait (2 actions) to do it. If we *just* look at damage, that's a powerful combo but actually right on the curve (maybe slightly above) for single target. However, these are AOE non-friendly bursts, which we only have D&D's assumptions on how to value and haven't fully worked out the math for yet. Furthermore, it lets you roll 5d10 which can trigger crits and the math on how to value *that* hasn't been mathematically isolated on any moveset yet.

In short, it's really strong but doesn't really peak past our "look at my awesome combo that's cool but not overpowered" threshold yet. However, all those X factors I've mentioned might well propel it way above that threshold once they're fully developed in the combat revamp.

The fact that Putrid Explosion requires the sacrifice of a conjuration does mean it needs to do more damage than the average trait. The fact that Drift of Phantasms only creates conjurations that can be used for blocking terrain, flanking and such means that it shouldn't cost much. Combining these two together is a lot of fun, we just need to make sure it's not *too* good. After the revamp, we'll probably figure out exactly where the sweet spot is and make some minor tweak.

Zarhon wrote:True on the swapping. As for the corners thing, that too is tricky, mostly because it causes a "burst 2" exploding zone all around the target, and since all bursts do friendly fire, if there are allies (or the summoner) near the target, they can get hit as well. It's not a safe tactic if the combat is "clustered" or there's little room to work with (e.g. a small hallway, or in an ambush/surrounded/unexpected melee range engagement).

It's actually just burst 1, not sure where you saw burst 2. But you're right, it would definitely be harder in a cramped space. Ideally you'd want some good room to be able to arrange things without hitting friendlies.

Philadelphus wrote:

Zarhon wrote:True on the swapping. As for the corners thing, that too is tricky, mostly because it causes a "burst 2" exploding zone all around the target, and since all bursts do friendly fire, if there are allies (or the summoner) near the target, they can get hit as well. It's not a safe tactic if the combat is "clustered" or there's little room to work with (e.g. a small hallway, or in an ambush/surrounded/unexpected melee range engagement).

It's actually just burst 1, not sure where you saw burst 2. But you're right, it would definitely be harder in a cramped space. Ideally you'd want some good room to be able to arrange things without hitting friendlies.

The minions make a burst 1, and they stand diagonally at the edges of the targeted enemy - thus, with all of them combined, you get a burst 2 of explosions, centered on the target enemy, and including it:

OOOOO
OXOXO
OOEOO
OXOXO
OOOOO

O = Empty/Exploded spaces
E = Enemy
X = Sacrificed conjurations (burst 1 around them)

Or, you could just let the phantasms take their turns one at a time. Conjurations don't share turns, even if multiple conjurations are conjured at the same time.

as for small spaces making summoning five at a time unreasonable and or hard to do?
1. summon bunnies, 1 at a time +3 pips, can do 1 damage before I explode them.
2. Any of my allies die in the explosion? not at higher levels.. cause I just grab Vitalizing soul so that I can give whoever is in front 1d12+2 temp HP(Potentially getting another crit)
3. tight spaces actually work best cause you have to worry less about crits
4. you can summon them spaces away from you, so if you're lucky you can just summon them behind the enemies effectively negating the space.

don't get me wrong, I love the combo and am going to use and abuse it in game cause I'm a hypocrite(I bitch about stupidly strong combat builds) and that is has me be pretty much defenseless. Cause I'm fun like that.
But I thought it might be good if it got a look, just in case.

We're definitely keeping an eye on it. I used a higher level version of this build myself (stalking spirit and reincarnation). It was powerful and versatile, definitely on the edge of too powerful if not over it. Until now though, we've prioritized fixing different problems centered around the skype system - because that's what most people (that aren't us) play.

That's fair/makes sense

So, I was holding on to this for the Immortal King contest or whatever it'd be called, but with the combat rework soon, I'll post it now. Behold a truly Immortal King!

You will need:
Blast From The Past
Blood Pact
Rapid Recovery
Lifebound Armour
Energizing Amulet

Expanded Descriptions:

Turn One:
Use Blood Pact (4 Pips -> 3 Pips)
Use Blast From The Past (3 Pips -> 0 Pips, You Cease to Exist)
Status: 30 HP, 0 Pips, Ceases to Exist

Turn Two:
Blood Pact (0 Pips -> 1 Pip, 30 HP -> 29 HP)
Lifebound Armour (29 HP -> 30 HP)
Rapid Recovery (1 Pip -> 2 Pips)
Energizing Amulet (2 Pips -> 3 Pips)
Blast From The Past (You Reappear, Deal 1d12 Damage to Target Creature and All Creatures Adjacent)
Use Blast From The Past (3 Pips -> 0 Pips, You Cease to Exist)
Status: 30 HP, 0 Pips, Ceases to Exist

Turn Three:
Repeat Turn Two
Ad Infinitum

LoganAura wrote:Phoenix Rising, and the keep-yourself-awake-and-active, along with the "Healing from 0 HP when still concious". A couple weeks back, one of my party members completely revived themselves from -29 because of it.

Put this into the not-broken thread when it really belongs here in the broken one.

It's always interesting to see how people react to defensive abilities. I remember having an extended discussion on these forums with someone saying that these kinds of defensive abilities are effectively worthless.

Paper Shadow wrote:So, I was holding on to this for the Immortal King contest or whatever it'd be called, but with the combat rework soon, I'll post it now. Behold a truly Immortal King!

You will need:
Blast From The Past
Blood Pact
Rapid Recovery
Lifebound Armour
Energizing Amulet

Expanded Descriptions:

Turn One:
Use Blood Pact (4 Pips -> 3 Pips)
Use Blast From The Past (3 Pips -> 0 Pips, You Cease to Exist)
Status: 30 HP, 0 Pips, Ceases to Exist

Turn Two:
Blood Pact (0 Pips -> 1 Pip, 30 HP -> 29 HP)
Lifebound Armour (29 HP -> 30 HP)
Rapid Recovery (1 Pip -> 2 Pips)
Energizing Amulet (2 Pips -> 3 Pips)
Blast From The Past (You Reappear, Deal 1d12 Damage to Target Creature and All Creatures Adjacent)
Use Blast From The Past (3 Pips -> 0 Pips, You Cease to Exist)
Status: 30 HP, 0 Pips, Ceases to Exist

Turn Three:
Repeat Turn Two
Ad Infinitum

I know how to trump this. Don't know how well it would go over in a forum game (this tactic is always confusing when nobody is watching at the same time) but some well made Reactions and Interrupts will screw this build. Here's what I'm imagining...

Floormaster
HP: 30
Trait - Oriented
This creature has a +5 bonus to saving throws against Dazed.

Talents:
(+1) Hard To See - Standard Utility
This creature gains resist 3 until the end of it's next turn.

(-1) Snatch! - Interrupt Utility
Trigger: This creature would be dealt damage.
Effect: Flip a coin. If heads, the triggering creature is stunned (save ends). If tails, triggering creature suffers 1D6 damage.

See? Not even a particularly over-powered monster (A little because of possible Stunning, but not bad.) It'll still manage to either deal damage (however little) or stun (which brings it to a screeching halt) every time it's attacked... and if it's the only kind of monster out today...