3E Warlock pacts/prices

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3E Warlock pacts/prices

Post by RobbyPants »

A while back, I saw Frank suggest a resource mechanic for warlocks that involve them making pacts and their powers coming with a price. What kinds of prices do you think would be thematic, meaningful, and manageable at the table?

About all I've got so far is:
  • Ability damage/drain: The corrupt spells from the BoVD did this. It works okay in terms of picturing the magic weakening the caster. If done in combat, it takes actions to mitigate that damage, although you likely won't cast enough of these to cause serious problems to yourself in one fight. Out of combat, these seem to be easily bypassed. The biggest drawback is constantly recalculating all of your stats.
  • Material gifts: This is basically just expensive material components for spells.
  • Damage/status conditions: You get hurt/debuffed by your own powers. This is really a variation on the ability damage option above. I'm not sure how thematic it is in that it's more of a representation of your magic being dangerous, and not a "price".
  • Negative levels: As above, but it could be flavored as you losing part of your soul. This is super prohibitive without Restoration, and pointless with it.
  • Geas/Quest: You are forced to do a favor for the entity that grants you powers. Although, going on quests is what PCs already do, so this is really only a cost if the new quest causes problems with your current one.
  • Souls: You harness souls from creatures and use them to fuel abilities. The system needs more rules to accommodate this, but it's thematic.
  • Sell your soul: When you die, you can't be rezzed. It's thematic, but it won't come up in a number of games.
  • Gradual transformation: You start to transform into something profane, which can affect your stats and RP opportunities.
So, what else am I missing? I'm leaning toward a class that has a good chunk of at-will abilities, and the good ones have one or more drawbacks.
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Post by DenizenKane »

Maybe Oracle curses can work?

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-cl ... cle-curses

To clarify, I mean tying the drawback directly to each ability you make a pact for.
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Post by Bigode »

Think "you lose something because the otherwordly is currently using it". Say, "you lose some perception because the entity uses some of your senses to pay attention to completely different things than you would" - for example, when you were about to be attacked, your partner was trying to ascertain whether the cockroaches on the corner were descended from Yig (and your shifty-eyedness may be recognized by others). Or "you need to eat something toxic to you and delicious to the entity" - so you take Con burn for eating fire on making the pact but can do it as often as you want while it lasts, or you put some mercury in your booze to channel the Drunken Immortals.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

I kind of like the idea of prices that encourage you to take further warlock abilities, thematically digging yourself deeper into your horrible relationship. Let's say you start by taking some sort of hellfire power, and the price is you can't be healed by divine magic. That's annoying, but you notice there's another power that grants fast healing or whatever, so you take that one, and the price is half your ground speed. That's annoying, but you notice there's another power that grants a flat Fly speed...
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Post by RobbyPants »

DenizenKane wrote:Maybe Oracle curses can work?

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-cl ... cle-curses

To clarify, I mean tying the drawback directly to each ability you make a pact for.
Some of those are pretty good and thematic. I'm thinking about making several different paths, where warlocks can dabble in all of them, but only master one (and perhaps improve others as they gain levels). It would be a way to make different warlocks feel distinct through class features alone. I'm thinking of stuff like: summoning, transformation, hellfire, beguiling/influence, and cursing. Different paths might have different costs/effects.

Bigode wrote:Think "you lose something because the otherwordly is currently using it". Say, "you lose some perception because the entity uses some of your senses to pay attention to completely different things than you would" - for example, when you were about to be attacked, your partner was trying to ascertain whether the cockroaches on the corner were descended from Yig
That is an interesting way to handle it. You could dole out all sorts of skill check penalties and status conditions to mimic certain ideas. The question is how often does it come up? Are we talking "you always have -2 to Spot and Search because someone is using your eyes part time" or "Every 1d10 rounds, you go blind for 1 round" sort of thing?

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I kind of like the idea of prices that encourage you to take further warlock abilities, thematically digging yourself deeper into your horrible relationship. Let's say you start by taking some sort of hellfire power, and the price is you can't be healed by divine magic. That's annoying, but you notice there's another power that grants fast healing or whatever, so you take that one, and the price is half your ground speed. That's annoying, but you notice there's another power that grants a flat Fly speed...
The idea is cool, although you'd have to plan in in a way that each penalty can be offset by more than one power; otherwise, you end up creating a very predictable chain.
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Re: 3E Warlock pacts/prices

Post by Voss »

RobbyPants wrote:A while back, I saw Frank suggest a resource mechanic for warlocks that involve them making pacts and their powers coming with a price. What kinds of prices do you think would be thematic, meaningful, and manageable at the table?

About all I've got so far is:
  • Ability damage/drain: The corrupt spells from the BoVD did this. It works okay in terms of picturing the magic weakening the caster. If done in combat, it takes actions to mitigate that damage, although you likely won't cast enough of these to cause serious problems to yourself in one fight. Out of combat, these seem to be easily bypassed. The biggest drawback is constantly recalculating all of your stats.
  • Damage/status conditions: You get hurt/debuffed by your own powers. This is really a variation on the ability damage option above. I'm not sure how thematic it is in that it's more of a representation of your magic being dangerous, and not a "price".
  • Negative levels: As above, but it could be flavored as you losing part of your soul. This is super prohibitive without Restoration, and pointless with it.
These are all variations on go fuck yourself (in degrees of shittiness), rendered into a trivial resource game by various spells. The pathfinder kineticist is a really super example of how fucking terrible a class can be based this line of thinking.

[*]Geas/Quest: You are forced to do a favor for the entity that grants you powers. Although, going on quests is what PCs already do, so this is really only a cost if the new quest causes problems with your current one.
[*]Material gifts: This is basically just expensive material components for spells.
So, do what other adventurers do, but be punished for it? Or sometimes rewarded if you use quest XP, or just business as usual. In either case, neither are compelling.
[*]Souls: You harness souls from creatures and use them to fuel abilities. The system needs more rules to accommodate this, but it's thematic.
This is nightmare fuel or trivial, depending on how you want to take it. Considering most adventurers are in the business of murdering people, it is potentially really trivial, but it is fetish fuel for Stupid Paladin Arguments.
I don't consider that a plus.
[*]Sell your soul: When you die, you can't be rezzed. It's thematic, but it won't come up in a number of games.
Meh. And then twin brother Tim appears. Or you're bored of the whole thing and death is a blessed release for everyone involved.
Either way, it's a party benefit, since they don't have to spend money, and they'll get a functional (possibly better) PC back next session regardless of what form the new character takes.
[*]Gradual transformation: You start to transform into something profane, which can affect your stats and RP opportunities.
[/list]
depending on how weird your game already gets, this can be a complete non-issue.
So, what else am I missing? I'm leaning toward a class that has a good chunk of at-will abilities, and the good ones have one or more drawbacks.
I think you're missing that with other classes around, this is a pretty terrible idea. Being a warlock either has to be way fucking better than every other class (because they pay a price that $class doesn't), or it's a terrible option no one should ever take (because they're paying an extra entry fee for 'be an adventurer' for no reason).

It's a concept that works in novels/movies/allegories, but is really awful at a table where everyone is supposed to be a functional contributor. It reminds me a lot of the 'Hunted' or 'Enemy' flaws in WW games. It's either a fucking awful trip that involves the group being dickslapped every couple sessions by DM penis extension (because you were an asshole in character creation), or just another random encounter that gets really tired after the first couple times.
Last edited by Voss on Tue Dec 20, 2016 2:42 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Bigode »

RobbyPants wrote:
Bigode wrote:Think "you lose something because the otherwordly is currently using it". Say, "you lose some perception because the entity uses some of your senses to pay attention to completely different things than you would" - for example, when you were about to be attacked, your partner was trying to ascertain whether the cockroaches on the corner were descended from Yig
That is an interesting way to handle it. You could dole out all sorts of skill check penalties and status conditions to mimic certain ideas. The question is how often does it come up? Are we talking "you always have -2 to Spot and Search because someone is using your eyes part time" or "Every 1d10 rounds, you go blind for 1 round" sort of thing?
I wish the latter was practical, but I meant the former. Maybe, maybe if the class already used WoF, one result could determine both power choices and a (possible) impairment?
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Post by RobbyPants »

The idea isn't "you're like everyone else, but with a cost they don't have". It's meant to be a resource mechanic played along side spell slots, WoF, and at-will guys.

I figure the basic entry level pact will have little impact on game play and grant thematic at-will powers. The powers that are too good to be strong-will need some sort of resource cost; that's where the prices come in.
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Post by spongeknight »

Well, firstly, do you want the pact costs to be one time deals or per usage of the power? Take Hellfire Blast for instance. You could model it so that just gaining usage of the ability required "investing" 2 Constitution to the relevant demon that's granting you the ability, trading some of your health to it for its power. Or you could take 2 Con damage per use of the ability, making a trade every time. Those are pretty different mechanical setups, so you probably want to choose one before going forward.
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Post by Harshax »

Is the class supposed to be about the gamble? Then you have a bunch of at-wills that are generally lower level than typical for a caster of your level. You also have pact powers, which are more powerful and at-will, but each use has a chance to exact a cost. This chance is cumulative with a slow cool-down.

I'd go with something Similar to the way 2E's Sha'ir worked. Your pact powers take longer to invoke, depending on the source of the power. In that class, a sha'ir could cast a divine spell, but it took longer to invoke it than an arcane spell of higher level than an equivalent wizard could cast. So each Pact has thematic powers, but you could try to get a spell outside that array. This represents the byzantine power structures of pacts within pacts among the denizens of deviltry.

A minor failure means your pact wasn't honored (the spell didn't show up), a greater failure might mean the denizen who you have a pact with delayed the return of your fetch, This prevents you from invoking pact powers for an additional period of time. Maybe your fetch was tortured (temporary stat damage), Maybe he gave your fetch a different spell, Temporary Transformations are essentially Charisma damage. Maybe the pact is honored, but a sacrifice is required.
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Post by Voss »

RobbyPants wrote:The idea isn't "you're like everyone else, but with a cost they don't have". It's meant to be a resource mechanic played along side spell slots, WoF, and at-will guys.

I figure the basic entry level pact will have little impact on game play and grant thematic at-will powers. The powers that are too good to be strong-will need some sort of resource cost; that's where the prices come in.
So, could you explain what it is about, without saying it is not about paying an extra cost while stating flat out that they need an extra cost? After providing a pile of examples of extra costs?
Last edited by Voss on Thu Dec 22, 2016 12:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Nitpick: he provided a pile of examples of costs, he didn't say they would be costs balanced to be above and beyond what other adventurers pay. Wizards already deal with expensive components now and then f'rex, while Barbarians classically lose access to a bunch of actions while their main party trick is active.
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Post by Voss »

Omegonthesane wrote:Nitpick: he provided a pile of examples of costs, he didn't say they would be costs balanced to be above and beyond what other adventurers pay. Wizards already deal with expensive components now and then f'rex, while Barbarians classically lose access to a bunch of actions while their main party trick is active.
:ugone2far:

Yes, barbarians are bad at a couple not punching people in the face actions while 'punching people in the face' toggle is set to 'on.' That isn't exactly a cost. You might as well say you can't not power attack while power attacking for all the meaning that has.

As for your expensive spell components nitpick, I already nitpicked that: it's a joke (because the spells are bad, or because the cost is trivial... or you're DM is an asshole and just fiats that you can't get diamonds in Waterdeep this time of year, so no stoneskin for you).

If you can come up with some meaningful costs other classes have to pay, I'd love to hear them. Aside from the PF kineticist, whose costs (and special you can't heal this huge pile of nonlethal damage because reasons' clause) makes it a shitty class.

I suppose you could say PF oracle, but, surprise, all those 'flaws' turn out to benefits sooner or later, and you'd be a dumbfuck not to pick one that doesn't matter and benefits you more than it will ever hurt you.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

So what I'm getting here is that you reject the concept of a cost that is meaningful and thematic in the game's fluff text while being just another power management system in actual gameplay. Right down to apparently having a problem with drain that can be healed when the combat ends, even though generally resource management is important while the battle music is playing more than when it stops.

Would that be fair to say?

Admittely you really do noeed an interesting mechanical frame to justify all this shit - the basic "sell your soul and service to a supernatural being for temporal power" shtick is covered by the Cleric class in D&D for example if you think about it for an instant.
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Post by RobbyPants »

Voss wrote:
RobbyPants wrote:The idea isn't "you're like everyone else, but with a cost they don't have". It's meant to be a resource mechanic played along side spell slots, WoF, and at-will guys.

I figure the basic entry level pact will have little impact on game play and grant thematic at-will powers. The powers that are too good to be strong-will need some sort of resource cost; that's where the prices come in.
So, could you explain what it is about, without saying it is not about paying an extra cost while stating flat out that they need an extra cost? After providing a pile of examples of extra costs?
As far as resource mechanics go: you get some at will powers and ones with a cost.

The at will powers will be weaker than spells of the appropriate level, but not to the point of being useless. They're your fall backs. The powers with the cost will be better than what a caster would get at that level; enough to justify the cost.

That's part of why I want to hammer out meaningful costs. Taking 2 Con damage is meaningful only so much as it takes a standard action (and probably a spell slot) for anotherPC to remove it. It basically means you can use it in combat a handful of times before you need to heal it.

If the costs are being set up to be a permanent alteration, it'd be to gain an ability that could be used at will. I would avoid drastic permanent costs for super at wills, because it's too easy to min max away all the draw backs.

Figure that this is being developed with other classes in mind. The idea isn't to make "you're a wizard, but with unnecessary drawbacks".
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Post by Voss »

Omegonthesane wrote:So what I'm getting here is that you reject the concept of a cost that is meaningful and thematic in the game's fluff text while being just another power management system in actual gameplay. Right down to apparently having a problem with drain that can be healed when the combat ends, even though generally resource management is important while the battle music is playing more than when it stops.

Would that be fair to say?
Sure. Because a cost that is thematic and fluff only isn't a cost, nor is it meaningful. Selling your soul in a game of D&D means jack shit. It's literally the default state of all clerics and Paladins anyway. Overall the result is WW vampire superheroes, or 4e sailor senshi warlocks and laser clerics. Or the laughable palladium warlock, which has multiple pages of what the infernal pact actually means, for realzies, and a powers section that basically boils down to a shitload of extra hp, the ability to punch people really hard, and a couple shitty magical abilities.

If you want to RP that you have tragic or edgy infernal backstory, you can just do that. It's entirely separate from whether you take a worthwhile class or not. And this crazy balancing act between shit abilities and overpowered abilities but at a cost does not, has not, and never will work.

And the resource management barely seems to be present. Being able to Nova strike with better than level appropriate spells then burn off some con penalties after combat with a wand of restoration means shit to me. And that's the closest anyone in this thread has gotten to an actual cost for being normal, letter alone the 'better than appropriate leveled ' spells Robby is now tossing out. Sure, at low levels before you can afford some wands, the class will just suck, but that isn't well done either.



@Robby - at this point you're digging a deeper hole. At wills that are shittier than spells don't matter, they don't have to be useless to still not matter- like the bullshit theme abilities PF has for sorcerers at level 1, no one ever cares if you can grow claws or have a shittier laser attack.

All that matters is that you're now saying instead of 'be a standard adventurer, but at a cost,' you've up the stakes to: be useless, or be better than a standard adventurer, but at a cost'

If you really want to shake that, pony up and put some examples on the table: at least two to three 'at-will' things and two to three real abilities and their costs (and which system/edition they're for). At the moment you're vaguely hemming and hawing at well-trod theoretical ground that has nothing but shit for past practical results.
Last edited by Voss on Thu Dec 22, 2016 6:24 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by RobbyPants »

Less good doesn't have to equal useless. There's a bit of a spectrum here.

I'm not sure I'd take a big chunk of Con damage early in a fight to nova if I had to wait until the end to raise my max HP and Fort save back above "you're almost dead". I think it'd work out more to using it sparingly, and leaning more heavily on it toward the end.

I don't hugely care if it's cured by wands or slots or whatever after the fight.
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Post by Voss »

RobbyPants wrote:Less good doesn't have to equal useless. There's a bit of a spectrum here.
Yes, its called 'not mattering.' If you plink people with crossbows, laser crossbows, claws or whatever it has zero effect on things. You're chipping away at HP in a way that might kill something trivial, or doing it because the current encounter isn't worth burning actual resources. No encounter under those terms has any weight to it. First level wizards were shitty crossbowmen for a long time for exactly that reason.

Being the guy who holds onto sleep (or equivalent) until the lieutenant and his gang runs out, and otherwise you hide in the back and shoot a crossbow is a horrible place for a character to be. You certainly don't design to that role in 2016.
I'm not sure I'd take a big chunk of Con damage early in a fight to nova if I had to wait until the end to raise my max HP and Fort save back above "you're almost dead". I think it'd work out more to using it sparingly, and leaning more heavily on it toward the end.
Yes...? Novaing isn't alpha striking. Holding on to it until you can pretty much be sure it ends the fight (and instantly recover the non cost) is why the cost is trivial at best.
I don't hugely care if it's cured by wands or slots or whatever after the fight.
Which, again, is why it isn't much of a cost. You don't even care, and the cost is the equivalent of washing your hands. If a single noncombat action makes something completely irrelevant, it IS irrelevant.

Do you actually have a concept for what you want the class to do beyond 'be warlock?' Is there some signature ability or ANYTHING interesting you want to do here?
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Post by RobbyPants »

You're the one saying the only at will action is crossbows or lasers. I won't argue against strawmen.

There is a cost in combat. Do you not see a lowering of HP and your Fort save in combat as something that might matter? If you're dead, that wand of lesser restoration is doing dick.

I'm looking for a way to make an alternate resource mechanic out of the concept. Yes, anyone could just roll up a wizard and call himself emo, but I'd like something more mechanically distinct.
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Post by Chamomile »

If warlocks want to use a price type mechanic and have it really feel like they're selling their soul to the devil, it pretty much needs to be either a single-player game or at the very least party universal. That way people can make permanent sacrifices (or at least sacrifices that last a very long time and thus can't be recovered from before it even matters), but they aren't going to be stacked up next to wizards who get their class features for free.

You could also do something with random chargen where demonic pacts are something available to you even if you don't have the INT to hack it as a wizard, but then you have to make random chargen work, and to do that you need to drastically alter the paradigm of your RPG away from "band of 3-6 adventurers saving the world and/or getting rich" to something where switching characters frequently is the norm. Either characters are expected to bite it early on or you rotate between separate parties regularly or something.
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Post by DSMatticus »

Voss wrote:Yes...? Novaing isn't alpha striking. Holding on to it until you can pretty much be sure it ends the fight (and instantly recover the non cost) is why the cost is trivial at best.
Let's be clear; any mechanic which changes your optimal combat strategy is not trivial by definition. The cost made you behave differently, in this particular case by either using it as a finisher or acting on an opportunity juicy enough to make the penalty worth it.

Anyway, as for the topic of warlock penalties generally, my aborted crack at this had weird pseudo negative levels that could not be prevented and could only be removed by a short ritual involving hitpoint damage - to yourself or another. So you'd build up negative levels during the fight and then when the fight was over you'd cut yourself or smash a bag of rats to recover and then you didn't care any more because you either had a wand of cure light wounds or more rats. End result being you were either a self-mutilating angstlock or a creepy dude who sacrifices small animals (or worse) to dark powers, which I thought were fitting outcomes.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

DSMatticus wrote:
Voss wrote:Yes...? Novaing isn't alpha striking. Holding on to it until you can pretty much be sure it ends the fight (and instantly recover the non cost) is why the cost is trivial at best.
Let's be clear; any mechanic which changes your optimal combat strategy is not trivial by definition. The cost made you behave differently, in this particular case by either using it as a finisher or acting on an opportunity juicy enough to make the penalty worth it.
Put it better than I could; I was about to come out with something about how any cost you think it's worth trying to work around is a real cost, but DSM nailed the fact that it's whether or not the cost changes your actual tactics.

Which is also why I felt the Barbarian Rage action limits were enough to count as a "real cost" - they meant that you only rage when you want to actually fight and not at any other time.

Permanent abilities with a Real Cost(tm) other than the opportunity cost of "I picked Evil Flight instead of Evil Sniper Fire" is innately harder to balance. Inevitably, any specific warlock will pick costs they don't care about, and unless your system is rather generalist-friendly "my dump stat is now an ultra dump stat" isn't a big enough cost to actually affect your day to day life.

And now for some reason I have this image of "In addition to your intended class abilities, you may sacrifice <value of the relevant minor magic item> for an unholy blessing that takes up one of your magic item slots and gives you the equivalent bonus, even if there is otherwise absolutely no way you could possibly have found a vendor in time" which is only barely an ability but gives you the excuse to have material sacrifices to your evil master.
Last edited by Omegonthesane on Thu Dec 22, 2016 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by deaddmwalking »

Your Warlock may benefit from the Kaelik Cleric model.

You can establish a number of long-term minor buffs, but expend them to accomplish a larger effect. Each 'pact' could provide a minor benefit; the cost of using the demonic being is losing the benefit you've already received. Since the cost is losing an active benefit, you can make each cost spell specific. For example, a minor buff could be a +1 to attack/damage rolls; you could sacrifice it for True Strike. Functionally, you're taking a -1 to attack/damage for the rest of the combat is you use that ability, but since it was already a benefit, it doesn't feel quite as bad as a penalty. But if you can have the +1 Attack/Damage all the time, you really are suffering as a result of using the ability.

I'd say the default design for a lot of people is try to offset a benefit with a cost (ie, vampires are awesome, but they need to drink blood or suffer a bunch of penalties). You're keeping the equation balanced if you move the benefit to 'after you drink blood'. For a vampire, it wouldn't feel like they're being 'punished' if they didn't drink blood; rather they're 'rewarded' for doing so. You can do the same thing here. Warlocks are rewarded for these deals; the punishment is losing those accumulated benefits that they count on.
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Post by Voss »

RobbyPants wrote:You're the one saying the only at will action is crossbows or lasers. I won't argue against strawmen.
Because you've yet to indicate anything beyond explicility less than a spell for at will or a not-level-appropriate big spell for a cost. You have no concept, so I'm working with the only existent examples of the model you've described. And those are all interchangeable crap that is functionally no different than shooting crossbows at people. Or, for pathfinder, nonsense actions that don't interact with anything meaningful at all, like dazzle or d6 nonlethal, which is just worse than shooting a crossbow.
There is a cost in combat. Do you not see a lowering of HP and your Fort save in combat as something that might matter?
Nope. Because you just described it as better than appropriately level spells. Since [good] appropriately leveled spells end combat, better than appropriately leveled spells shouldn't have a problem with that hurdle.
I'm looking for a way to make an alternate resource mechanic out of the concept. Yes, anyone could just roll up a wizard and call himself emo, but I'd like something more mechanically distinct.
You've yet to do anything but retread theoretical ground that is anything but distinct, mechanically or flavor wise. Since you're repeating the stupid con penalty yet again, I'll point you at the shit that is the PF kineticist, yet again (especially since it's also their pew-pew warlock replacement). The only mechanic you've proposed isn't distinct, and is also shit.
DSMatticus wrote:
Voss wrote:Yes...? Novaing isn't alpha striking. Holding on to it until you can pretty much be sure it ends the fight (and instantly recover the non cost) is why the cost is trivial at best.
Let's be clear; any mechanic which changes your optimal combat strategy is not trivial by definition. The cost made you behave differently, in this particular case by either using it as a finisher or acting on an opportunity juicy enough to make the penalty worth it.
A stupid big spell that just ends combat is... not changing D&D strategy in any fashion. Finisher or juicy opportunity is exactly the rocket launcher tag this game has been chasing for decades.
It's just that finisher can be tossed at enemies still at 100%. At 'better than level appropriate' that literally can't be hard, unless he goes full moron and insists on evocations.
Last edited by Voss on Fri Dec 23, 2016 4:48 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by RobbyPants »

I suppose it would be better to make it not "better than level appropriate". I think I agree with you there. I'll make the non-at-wills in line with the good spells for their level, and the price is there to keep you from spamming it all fight long. Just like how a caster can't use their A spells all fight long.
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