Author Topic: INA: Discussion Thread  (Read 3117 times)

sirpercival

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INA: Discussion Thread
« on: June 23, 2017, 10:01:14 PM »
SO. MANY. SUBSYSTEMS.

Talk about them here.

Garryl

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2017, 10:41:47 AM »
Wisp of Fortitude refers to the host of a Wisp of Breath in the basic influence description.

Wisp of Life seems like the one things wisps shouldn't do. The cost of using wisps is hit points, and this gives them back freely.

Given that you can fail saves on a natural 1, you're surprisingly unlikely to get a wisp's influence counter up to high levels without triggering the compound influence even with a high Will save bonus. Even just getting the DC up to a simple 10 has only a 60% chance of occurring.

Edit:
How to get around Wisp of Action's compound influence: Whenever it triggers, ask two of your buddies to Intimidate (demoralize) you. Voluntarily fail your level check. Boom, one round of fear triggering the panic conversion. Then you can get on with your day.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2017, 10:47:59 AM by Garryl »
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sirpercival

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2017, 11:56:49 PM »
UGH so much stuff to edit & rebalance. Lol. I'm going to wait on tackling most of your comments until I need a break from porting everything, otherwise I'll get lost. The exception will be, whatever I decide to play in the PbP.

With that in mind, thoughts on Ley Engineer?

Garryl

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2017, 12:09:18 PM »
At level 9, your pulse for deploying jumps by 3 (+1 max pulse, -2 deploy pulse cost). Also, just pulse and class features in general. Roughly half your potential pulse comes from class features that modify your pulse, rather than your base pulse. If you're willing to wait or you can manipulate your Wisdom checks, you can use Channel Ley for another +4. Makes it a stupid good boost for prebuffing, I guess. Really, though, pulse is weird. It scales realized plans' areas stupidly, but otherwise it's a minimum requirement for deploying plans, an expended resource for flaring, and the thing that controls plan duration. The actual strength of a plan's effect is based on your skill checks, which, while related to level, aren't solely dependent on it. I expect you're going to get a lot of Truenamer-style optimization of skill checks to hit the highest power you can get, but... I dunno.

It takes 10 pulse to realize a plan with a radius ~4.5 times that of Earth. You can do that at level 15 if you have a +10 Wisdom check modifier and take 10 with Channel Ley. If you find a way to get the boosts from Coalesce Ley Web to apply to a realized plan, you can roughly cover the galaxy with 25 pulse. Exponential growth is fun, am I right?

Alright, now that we've covered the entire planet with a realized plan, what do we do? Grab a bit of fire resistance, then use Heatwave. Assuming a very tame DC 30 check, you're dealing 2d8 fire damage per round for 600 rounds to everything on the planet (save for half), an average total of 5400 damage. Congratulations on destroying nearly all life on the planet at level 15.

... Mind you, that's the only thing Heatwave is good for. Deploying it is useless, since any creature that can't move out of a 30 foot radius in 1 minute is already defeated. Flaring it is just a poor blasting spell that also hits you and your allies. If you could optimize your Craft check to get enough damage to be useful at low levels, you'd be one-shotting yourself, too.

Broken Ground is a no-save immobilize for non-flyers. It costs 1 more pulse to realize than Heatwave, but if you want to wait to level 18 instead, you can make the planet permanently unlivable. Also, the Flare effect is more powerful the lower your check result is. All a high check result gives you is the potential ability to not be affected by your own plan (along with letting your enemies ignore it, too).

Actually, on to plans in general. They're all centered on yourself. Worse, they're emanations that follow you. There is exactly one creature guaranteed to be hit by the full effect of any debuffing plans, and that's you.
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Garryl

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2017, 02:27:05 PM »
Wisp of Life forces you to try to deal nonlethal damage to everything, although the description of the basic influence only indicates the wisp's respect for life. Why does it not want you breaking objects, destroying constructs, or killing undead? Then again, it does weirdly fit with the passive-aggressive attitude of the compound influence that is completely at odds with everything else about itself. The DC 10 lore about Saria Tenpence is likewise opposed to the actual mechanics.

I think you have the actions swapped for Wisp of Strength's 13 and 17 point abilities. Also, there's no way a Strength check will ever keep up with an attack roll.
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Garryl

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #5 on: June 26, 2017, 09:51:13 AM »
Soul Refractor
The soulmelds are generally good, although there are some minor issues (see below). I'm not convinced that you're giving up as much from the base class as you get from the soulmelds, though. It's most obvious at level 1 where you lose one observation known in exchange for shaping one soulmeld (and having access to the whole list to choose from). I think it evens out by the higher levels, but it definitely seems like it should be a power up for at least the first several levels.

Refractor Soulmelds
Bodies of Tombaugh (Shoulders): Needs an off switch like Planet of Galle (Heart) so you don't accidentally bludgeon your party members to death over the day.

Classes of Cannon: A lot of these saves are really, really specific. Most of the time, you'll be getting a bonus on saves against the first spell or SLA in an encounter, and nothing after that.
Classes of Cannon (Shoulders): Needs a wording change. As written, a creature with blindsight eats the miss chance if their eyes are open, despite not relying on sight.

Ephemerides of Brahmagupta: Int to AC is significantly more potent than your standard soulmeld's base effect. It's something that might show up as a chakra bind effect, though.

Mysteries of Wu Xian: Nobody takes Quantum feats any more. Instead, they take Shape Soulmeld (Mysteries of Wu Xian).

Otherwise, the soulmelds themselves look just fine.
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sirpercival

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2017, 02:10:13 PM »
HOLY CRAP ALL OF INSPIRATUM HAS BEEN PORTED.

Re: What you're giving up to get Refractor, the other thing you're giving up is from Star Charts. A Constellation gives you both automatic Conjunctions and abilities, whereas the soulmelds make you trade off between them. Granted that a 1st-level SR vs. a 1st-level Astronomer is probably better... I'm not sure it's super significant though.

Re: Soulmelds, will fix Tombaugh and the Shoulders bind for Cannon. Not sure whether it's worth changing the base effect of Cannon, or how I'd do it. Will fix Brahmagupta.

Wu Xian only gives you one Quantum feat, and it's only when you shape it. You can't swap stuff in the middle of the day, for example. And you can't use it to get into Voyeur. Do you think it's a problem?

That reminds me, I should make a Quantum version of metamagic rods. Hm, maybe Quantum Spectacles? Quantum MONOCLES?


Garryl

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #7 on: June 26, 2017, 02:57:25 PM »
Wu Xian only gives you one Quantum feat, and it's only when you shape it. You can't swap stuff in the middle of the day, for example. And you can't use it to get into Voyeur. Do you think it's a problem?

Taking a Quantum feat only gives you one Quantum feat, and it's only when you take it. You can't swap stuff in the middle of ever, for example.

Quote
That reminds me, I should make a Quantum version of metamagic rods. Hm, maybe Quantum Spectacles? Quantum MONOCLES?

Monocles. Definitely monocles. Gentleman's single-use monocles (or maybe those are the scroll equivalents).
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sirpercival

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #8 on: June 26, 2017, 04:02:15 PM »
Wu Xian only gives you one Quantum feat, and it's only when you shape it. You can't swap stuff in the middle of the day, for example. And you can't use it to get into Voyeur. Do you think it's a problem?

Taking a Quantum feat only gives you one Quantum feat, and it's only when you take it. You can't swap stuff in the middle of ever, for example.

Well, not with that attitude.

OK, so, I'll change the effect. It'll still be something involving Quantum feats, but not THAT.

Quote
Quote
That reminds me, I should make a Quantum version of metamagic rods. Hm, maybe Quantum Spectacles? Quantum MONOCLES?

Monocles. Definitely monocles. Gentleman's single-use monocles (or maybe those are the scroll equivalents).
Hahahaha single-use monocles is amazing. "Why, didn't you know, old chap? You can't use these things more than once, your eyes contaminate them! You have to give them what-for!"

EDIT: I also think I want to make a Legacy Item spyglass. :D  Any other ideas for Observer items?
« Last Edit: June 26, 2017, 04:48:33 PM by sirpercival »

Garryl

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #9 on: June 26, 2017, 07:18:11 PM »
Astrolabe? Sextant?
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sirpercival

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #10 on: June 26, 2017, 07:39:40 PM »
Astrolabe? Sextant?
But those are the names of class features...

Garryl

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #11 on: June 26, 2017, 08:11:31 PM »
Son, you've got a condition problem.

Um, what else...
- (Pinhole) camera
- Lens
- Observatory
- Telescope

Edit: Actually, I'm getting ideas.
- Scrolls: Genteleman's single-use monocle.
- Metamagic rods: Lenses (attach them to your spyglass).
- Wands: Camera ("captures" the image of the phenomenon).
« Last Edit: June 26, 2017, 08:27:57 PM by Garryl »
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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2017, 11:17:13 PM »
Any chance to get a phenomena table sorted by number of active conjunctions? If I remember correctly, the maximum number of active inferior conjunctions is the limiter on what phenomena are available to you by level.
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sirpercival

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #13 on: June 28, 2017, 10:10:52 AM »
Any chance to get a phenomena table sorted by number of active conjunctions? If I remember correctly, the maximum number of active inferior conjunctions is the limiter on what phenomena are available to you by level.

Yeah, I can do that... though honestly it's probably easier to just add a column to the existing one and make it sortable. Do you know if tablesort is working yet?

In other news, here's a distribution of Observer feats:
- 4 dip feats for non-Observers
- 7 Quantum feats (useless for 1st level)
- 6 feats for Astronomer class features (all but one useless for 1st level and/or for Soul Refractor)
- 1 clone of Martial Study

So that leaves 2 feats which are theoretically useful for a 1st-level character. Underwhelming! Lol.

Garryl

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Re: INA: Discussion Thread
« Reply #14 on: June 28, 2017, 10:51:32 AM »
Any chance to get a phenomena table sorted by number of active conjunctions? If I remember correctly, the maximum number of active inferior conjunctions is the limiter on what phenomena are available to you by level.

Yeah, I can do that... though honestly it's probably easier to just add a column to the existing one and make it sortable. Do you know if tablesort is working yet?

No table sorting yet, by the look of it. Tablesort still displays as a table2, but unless there's some nuance about it that I'm missing that's changed from before, the sorting part doesn't work yet.
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