Okay. After thoroughly nerfing the hell out of persistent spell in Players Guide to Faerun, they did an about-face and put a feat in this damn book that lets you throw out a persistent divine power at character level 7. WTF?
And all of the broke-ass spells from DotF and Masters of the Wild are back, and they didn't even change them a little bit, with the exception of briar web.
What's going on?
I don't understand Complete Divine's balance.
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Re: I don't understand Complete Divine's balance.
Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1084583676[/unixtime]]
And all of the broke-ass spells from DotF and Masters of the Wild are back, and they didn't even change them a little bit, with the exception of briar web.
What's going on?
Does this include Spikes?
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RandomCasualty
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Re: I don't understand Complete Divine's balance.
Wow, spikes was left alone?!
I'm now absolutely certain that WotC is on crack.
I'm now absolutely certain that WotC is on crack.
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The_Hanged_Man
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Re: I don't understand Complete Divine's balance.
Here's what gets me. They nerf the fuck out of all the fighter/wizard classes, make it impossible to play anything but a straight caster, then put out a zillion good fighter/cleric classes. Why? Who's got the hardon for clerics at WotC?
I've noticed some interesting inferences for how WotC view balance. For instance, apparantly full BAB + a feat is equal to a caster level. An Extra Domain + a minor ability = caster level, too. This seriously devalues a caster level, IMO.
And yes, the stupid ass spells are back.
I've noticed some interesting inferences for how WotC view balance. For instance, apparantly full BAB + a feat is equal to a caster level. An Extra Domain + a minor ability = caster level, too. This seriously devalues a caster level, IMO.
And yes, the stupid ass spells are back.
Re: I don't understand Complete Divine's balance.
Look, it's very obvious that Ed Stark has a raging hard-on for the druid class, as he plays one. That completely explains the stupid feats, the lack of a single druidic PrC, and the out-of-this-world overpowered spells (for druids) in the back of the book.
What eludes me, however, is how they made the Sacred Exorcist and the Contemplative PrC inaccessable for druids. Combined with the competition domain and that divine metamagic feat, druids would be indisputedly the best class in the game.
Right now, however, my money is on the manufactured high-level cleric with the animal and trickery domains and having the divine metamagic feat. Clerics getting access to all-day shapechange is madness. MADNESS I SAY
What eludes me, however, is how they made the Sacred Exorcist and the Contemplative PrC inaccessable for druids. Combined with the competition domain and that divine metamagic feat, druids would be indisputedly the best class in the game.
Right now, however, my money is on the manufactured high-level cleric with the animal and trickery domains and having the divine metamagic feat. Clerics getting access to all-day shapechange is madness. MADNESS I SAY
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RandomCasualty
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Re: I don't understand Complete Divine's balance.
WotC books are so flooded with blatant favoritism toward classes, that I've already basically given up on considering any of them 'balanced' in any way. Designers ridiculously buff up their pet classes and concepts and leave everyone else hanging with crap they're too lazy to balance. Lately I'm giving the designers about as much credit as the writers at Mongoose.
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Username17
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Re: I don't understand Complete Divine's balance.
The concept is that characters can spend massive amounts of their abilities on cure spells, and therefore will.
If that happens, the characters are using up a lot of their ability slots and combat actions on things which completely suck and don't directly help their side win. The thought, then, is that the rest of the rest of the Divine Caster's spell slots and combat actions have to be better than other characters' spells and actions in order to catch up.
And if you actually do that - it works. But you don't have to do that.
Instead, you can simply not cast any healing spells (either relying on CLW wands out of combat, or even just letting the rest of your party suffer their own damn wounds), and then all of your spells and combat actions are going to be better than anyone elses.
The concept here is that doing that is going to make other people unhappy in two ways: firstly because you are outshining their characters, and secondly because you are not healing their characters when you obviously could. So then player pressure is supposed to keep you in line by making you take suboptimal choices in spell selection and combat action.
However, this is total bullshit, since manifestly you could just choose to laugh maniacally, kick game balance in the balls, and not cast any healing spells. That's your choice, and if you make it you are better than any other character can be, by design.
The only way to balance that kind of crap, is to give people balanced characters and then allow some of them to be able to heal - for free. That's what a class system can do. Making healing into a combat action and spell slot worse than any other and acting like it counts negative against your total power is a fool's game.
-Username17
If that happens, the characters are using up a lot of their ability slots and combat actions on things which completely suck and don't directly help their side win. The thought, then, is that the rest of the rest of the Divine Caster's spell slots and combat actions have to be better than other characters' spells and actions in order to catch up.
And if you actually do that - it works. But you don't have to do that.
Instead, you can simply not cast any healing spells (either relying on CLW wands out of combat, or even just letting the rest of your party suffer their own damn wounds), and then all of your spells and combat actions are going to be better than anyone elses.
The concept here is that doing that is going to make other people unhappy in two ways: firstly because you are outshining their characters, and secondly because you are not healing their characters when you obviously could. So then player pressure is supposed to keep you in line by making you take suboptimal choices in spell selection and combat action.
However, this is total bullshit, since manifestly you could just choose to laugh maniacally, kick game balance in the balls, and not cast any healing spells. That's your choice, and if you make it you are better than any other character can be, by design.
The only way to balance that kind of crap, is to give people balanced characters and then allow some of them to be able to heal - for free. That's what a class system can do. Making healing into a combat action and spell slot worse than any other and acting like it counts negative against your total power is a fool's game.
-Username17
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RandomCasualty
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Re: I don't understand Complete Divine's balance.
The real problem with healing is that we need to figure out exactly how strong it should be. It either has to be really valuable or not valuable at all.
Part of the concept of the game is that you lose hit points and get worn down as you continue to adventure. And basically this whole drain is supposed to come from the party cleric. Unfortunately with wands of cure light wounds, this drain just doesn't exist anymore since clerics can get around it.
Now, either there can't be any wands/scrolls/potions that do this and spell slots/class abilities are the only way, and a big part of the cleric's ability is that he can heal (as in 2nd edition) or every character should have some ability to restore himself, much like catching a second wind, and all characters are assumed to walk into battle at full hp. From a balance standpoint this is the easier of the two, however lots of healing kind of destroys the resources expended aspect of the CR system, since you'd effectively have infinite resources.
You just can't have a game with a CR system based on resource consumption when hit points are effectively free to restore.
Part of the concept of the game is that you lose hit points and get worn down as you continue to adventure. And basically this whole drain is supposed to come from the party cleric. Unfortunately with wands of cure light wounds, this drain just doesn't exist anymore since clerics can get around it.
Now, either there can't be any wands/scrolls/potions that do this and spell slots/class abilities are the only way, and a big part of the cleric's ability is that he can heal (as in 2nd edition) or every character should have some ability to restore himself, much like catching a second wind, and all characters are assumed to walk into battle at full hp. From a balance standpoint this is the easier of the two, however lots of healing kind of destroys the resources expended aspect of the CR system, since you'd effectively have infinite resources.
You just can't have a game with a CR system based on resource consumption when hit points are effectively free to restore.