Re: Official Errata Suggestion/Discussion Thread (changes you'd like to see made)

[Xel Unknown]

I like the idea of Focus Points/Pips idea more the Energy too.

[Fury of the Tempest]

Something PiP's just sounds weird in general. But Focus sounds better.

[Ramsus]

I'm not sure I really care between the two. I kinda like energy a bit better for flavor reasons as being more correctly applicable (kinda sorta) to more characters.

[Hayatecooper]

Eh, focus sounds cool
And this way the Devs get what they want and we can pretend we won and made them conform to what we wanted. Everyone wins!

[ZamuelNow]

Very nice. Um...shouldn't this technically be in the other Errata thread since it's for the actual updates and this is for discussion?

[Kindulas]

Very nice.  Um...shouldn't this technically be in the other Errata thread since it's for the actual updates and this is for discussion?

lol, me can find right threads....

[Ramsus]

Animal Magnetism references Animal Speech but, the Utility is Animal Speak.

[Kindulas]

Animal Magnetism references Animal Speech but, the Utility is Animal Speak.

fixed

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

Weather-Crafting has been brought up, as it's not currently clear whether it's supposed to be usable indoors and to what extent. It should definitely be clarified- the only question is whether it should clearly work indoors or not work indoors. The only real concern I have with indoor weather-crafting is generating lightning storms in the living room and other similarly catastrophic events - but that can surely be mitigated by adding some sort of loose restriction. The question is how best to do it.

Thoughts?

Here's the current talent for reference.

Weather-Crafter
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.[*]

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 be any skill you like

[Ramsus]

Well my thoughts on indoor vs outdoor effects have been posted already. I would like to say that a 100 foot radius is pretty small, if we're going to change something maybe we could change feet to yards there (and for Heavy Weather obviously). It won't have any negative impact on Thundercrash since that's still a drop in the bucket compare to a mile.

[ZamuelNow]

I think it's a combination of specific versus broad thinking with this.  There's also another intriguing issue of buffing a talent laterally makes it's uses more...lateral.  Originally, Weather Crafting was Athletics/Acrobatics which would be like show canon pegasi.  Expanding to any skill automatically alters the conditions it could be used since you're no longer needing to move clouds around.  You kinda updated the system in a way that you can now make Storm (who can make indoor weather) as opposed to just Rainbow Dash.  There's also another issue that makes the indoor manipulation less of an issue and that's time.  Without having 10 Seconds Flat, weather creation takes 5 minutes.  In hostile situations it's liable for you to be caught without someone watching your back and in friendly situations it doesn't matter anyway unless you're rushing to surprise someone.  Sure, there might some penalties for space/moisture/pressure but the preparation time and the expansion to all skills theoretically make the argument moot.

The more catastrophic uses seem like they'd classify as things with higher DCs. Rather than changing the talent, perhaps there should be a chart of suggested base DCs and suggested modifiers. This seems more like a GM guide type thing than something built into the player talent page, though.

[Ramsus]

Personally I'd rather avoid a chart. Last time a chart was made was for Magecraft and all it served to do was force people into the mindset that those with Magecraft have to specialize in Arcana because of Dan&co's playstyle even when other GMs would not necessarily have come up with such high numbers or penalties for time on their own and would have allowed people with lower Arcana skill bonuses (like 11-12) to actually be able to do anything with those utilities. I'd rather not cause weather-crafting to also become a "specialists only" talent.

[Xel Unknown]

When it comes to any changes I'd do with Weather Crafter... I'd edit it's time contrate personally... And when it comes to the whole Indoor vs Outdoor thing, that strikes me more as something that'd need GM guildlines for. Or just a line that indoors weather crafting can be dangerous or something.

[tygerburningbright]

I for one really can't see why it can't be use within a structure.

The main issues with the talent at the moment have already been brought up tiny range and overly long prep time. Additionally well I feel Heavy Weather and 10 Seconds Flat are under powered for taking up an entire talent slot.

[ZamuelNow]

Maybe Heavy Weather but I see 10 Seconds Flat as being worth it.  Perhaps HW should be 1000 feet?  Would feel much more worth it, especially if you have 10SF.

[Zarhon]

Well, since lightning can occur indoors in the form of Ball Lightning already, I'd say no restriction should apply.

Keep in mind that the only ones who would be safe within a room full of lightning would be someone with the thunderborn racial, and they already can generate lightning of their own. Everyone else is relying on luck not to get zapped by the highly-chaotic nature of it.

On the subject of weather-related talents, though, should there be an update/improvement to cloudsculpting, and the other weather utilities?

Wall of text below!  

Weathercrafting talents analysis:

TLDR: Weathercrafting talent tree is having the same issues as the animal talents, prior to fixing - too much talents to invest into, with few effects / benefits in between each. They probably need to be mixed together a bit, or otherwise improved.

[A1C Bronymous]

@Magecraft: I'm still using IW in my game, because Magecraft is ridiculous. Its overcomplicated for anyone who isn't a math major and its based on very limiting ideas, e.g. the "Level 15 specialization". It's not user friendly, for DM or player, and especially for new players (which if you recall was the reason of some recently debated changes).

Doing that, and doing the same with Weather Crafting, means taking certain things out of the hands of the DM to decide, and instead forcing them to do calculations. I can trust myself not to let my players break my game, and to not stifle them, I don't need a chart and a held hand (not all the time, anyway). It also goes back on the reason why Genetic Engineering became a thing- which was, any player can be anything and do anything. But with stuff like Magecraft, you are limiting people by class (instead of race), saying only really magy mages can do actual mage stuff, and encourages min-maxing and the like. And in some cases, I wouldn't even have a problem with that- have the system follow show canon more, and let DMs decide where to deviate- but it goes against your own reasons for having stuff as they are.

Magecraft, and a similarly redone Weather Crafting, belong in the same system as Legacy racials, because otherwise you're trying to have it both ways. Or at the very least, you're doing the classic MMO ignorance of saying "hey, there are no classes, do whatever- but if you don't specialize into what essentially is your class, you're going to have a bad time".

Edit: Ninja'd
ADDENDUM: There is atmosphere inside, its just fabricated and altered through non natural means. Just because its storming outside doesn't mean you can't make it snow inside. It shouldn't not work indoors.

[Ramsus]

In response to Zarhon's post: Ten seconds flat I currently feel is fine (as I'm more or less ok with the default weather-crafting time). Thundercrash is also more or less fine in my view. The Sky's The Limit and Lightning Rod I feel shouldn't exist. They becomes just insane when you combine them with Freaky Knowledge and are on their own still just an unfair advantage nobody else doing any other kind of thing can get. Heavy Weather really is just too weak and I feel the same about Cloudsculpting. You really only take Cloudsculpting for flavor reasons or because you're taking unofficial talents that list it as a prerequisite.

[SparkImpulse]

ADDENDUM: There is atmosphere inside, its just fabricated and altered through non natural means. Just because its storming outside doesn't mean you can't make it snow inside. It shouldn't not work indoors.

But, the "atmosphere" is much, much smaller. If in a game I ran, a player tried to weather-craft snow out of the cold air in the freezer ... I'd give him a hooful. At most.

If they want to create a rain cloud to cool off the party bully ... and it's summer and/or there's just no wet, dark air to work with ... I'd probably just say it fails, or was really skinny and just sorta got the grump damper and grumpier.

Now, if they went outside, flew around for the utilities' five minutes, and brought a stormcloud back ... that'd make sense to me. Grump is now soaked. And grumpier, but still.

[Ramsus]

On the other hand Spark, none of those things would fail if I were the GM (in fact, they wouldn't even require rolls so long as they weren't major changes to the environment). And that's fine. Your players can argue their reasons with you and you're free to make things easier or harder in your games. It's not great when the system tells us how hard it should be though because it gets in the way of players and GMs coming to agreements that work for their games. (Yes, you can as a GM just ignore things that are in the rules but, people are way less inclined to do that if there is a chart telling them how to think so that they don't have to. Even if it totally fails to work for their game, people will often rely on a chart.)

[ZamuelNow]

I actually do have an idea for reworking 10 Seconds Flat.  Change it from At Will to a number per day (5?) then pull it out of the Weather Crafting chain, allowing it to be used on everything with a preparation time.

While I agree with the modifiers for Magecraft (more prep time means it's easier feels obvious), I think a lot of the actual example DCs feel off.  Probably another discussion for after this one.

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

Some structure does need to be provided for new DMs that feel lost. It's a lesser evil in general to have some structure that experienced DMs can ignore than to have no structure and leave inexperienced DMs in the dark. In general, I find it best to provide structure with a clear comment that it can be ignored at the DM's discretion. Of course, some structure is sometimes required just to make sure something is balanced too. That was a problem with Witchcraft before, it was ludicrously overpowered in some games and it was extremely underpowered in other games - because DMs implemented it wildly differently from one another. It's fine if a DM wants to nerf or buff a talent for their personal game, but having a middle-ground to know where the mid-point of balance is can help a lot.

EDIT - Sadly, I've got a lot of work to do. I look forward to reading the discussion later.

[Fury of the Tempest]

Magecraft is fine. It helps people understand the boundaries of what their character can and can't do, and gives the GM's a good base line.

Its just needs to be emphaized the the DC's and the modifiers are only GUIDES AND RECOMMENDATIONS. NOT. FACT.

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

Exactly. Quick thing before I sign off. This is currently the official comment on the magecraft sample DCs, included in the Sorcerer Supreme document.

Note to DMs

The following are some sample DCs for magical feats balanced around what we expect from an arcane specialist. However, these are just our ideas of what is balanced in the system. If you want your world’s magic to work differently, if perhaps certain kinds of magic are a lot easier than others or you just want magical might to be a lot more accessible or a lot less accessible to the mages among us - feel free to play with these numbers however you like. It’s your world.

[Ramsus]

Zamuel, that's a really bad idea for a few reasons. 1) Some talents are insane in they can be used in ten seconds (especially anything that normally required an hour). 2) It doesn't make sense for weather-crafters not to be able to do anything quickly if they're practiced at it.

I don't really see why you guys want to change it.

I'm just gonna disagree with Stair's appraisal of what does and doesn't need charts. Also, you can tell people they are free to ignore a chart but, it doesn't mean they will. People are quite often lazy and overly trusting in such things.

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